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THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 



THE DYNAMIC 
OF CHRISTIANITY 

& g>tu&p of tfje ©ital ant) permanent 
€ltmtnt in tlje Christian Heltgton 

BY 

EDWARD MORTIMER CHAPMAN 



" Enthroned above the world although He sit, 
Still is the world in Him and He in it ; 
The self-same Power in yonder sunset glows 
That kindled in the lords of Holy Writ." 

Richard Hovey. 




MSMmEaSM 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(Ct>e fitoetfibe pre?£, Cambridge 

1904 



US8AHY of GONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 7 I9U4 

Copynsnt Entry 

CLASS /\ XXc'Noi 

ICIC12) 

COPY 8. 






COPYRIGHT I9O4 BY EDWARD MORTIMER CHAPMAN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November IQ04 



To 

I. N. C. 



PEEFACE 

A preface would scarce be needful to this 
little book were it not for a fear and a hope 
cherished by the Author. His fear is lest 
some casual reader should be tempted to num- 
ber him among those who go about to " re- 
concile Science and Religion." He has no 
claim upon the fellowship of that noble and 
futile company. Their ideal is so worthy that 
they deserve the reward of all peacemakers — 
a reward which he would gladly share. But 
he is hindered from seeking it in their society 
by a doubt as to the application of the Beati- 
tude to those who cry " Peace, peace/' where 
there is no quarrel. The reconciliation of 
Science and Religion seems to him to be 
like an attempt to harmonize the fact of sun- 
rise with the joy of walking and working in 
the light. 

His hope is that he may succeed in remind- 



viii PREFACE 

ing a generation very busy with the statics of 
Religion- — its organizations and its machin- 
eries, its creeds and its charities — of the 
principle of life and power which gives them 
their significance. It may be that this princi- 
ple and that which has given to the last cen- 
tury of adventure in the realm of Physical 
Science its peculiar and compelling fascina- 
tion will prove to be identical. 

The theme is so large that many essays 
must be made toward its exposition and its 
application to life. Some of these will prove 
to be successes and others failures ; the fail- 
ures being perhaps no less needful to the 
ultimate prevalence of truth than the suc- 
cesses. Since that which is set down between 
these covers has been born of experience, the 
Author ventures to hope that it may find 
place in the more cheerful category; but if 
not, that it may at least be numbered among 
the Failures that Help. 

E. M. C. 

The Homestead, 

Old Saybrook, Conn., 
23 July, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



I. Introduction 1 

II. The Zeitgeist 22 

III. The Present State of Popular Theologi- 

cal Thought 47 

IV. The Religion of the People ... 72 
V. The Social Unrest 96 

VI. The Thesis 121 

VII. The Witness of Scripture .... 142 

VIII. The Witness of the Christian Church 168 

IX. The Witness of Individual Experience . 193 

X. The New Freedom of Faith . . . 221 

XI. The New Meaning of Some Old Words . 255 

XII. The New Harmonies of Eevelation . 288 

Appendix : Synopsis of Argument . . 321 

Index 327 



THE 

DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

I 

INTRODUCTION 

More than six decades have now passed since 
Macaulay imagined his famous traveler from 
New Zealand perched upon a broken arch of 
London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. 
Paul's. The essayist's contention was that 
even in the day when London should have 
become a desolation, and the centre of her 
formal worship a heap, the Church of Rome 
might still prove to be an undiminished power 
in the world. He argued with characteristic 
grace and assurance that theology was not, 
and could not become, a progressive science ; 
that Socrates, in confuting the little atheist 
Aristodemus, had anticipated all that is really 
significant in Paley's argument from design ; 
and that the fact of Sir Thomas More's readi- 
ness to die for his faith in transubstantiation 
is sufficient to lead us to expect that any man 



2 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of similar intelligence and honesty may hold 
the doctrine now as firmly as Henry VIII's 
chancellor held it, since our advance in science, 
great as it has been, scarcely served to make 
it more unreasonable in the nineteenth than 
it must have seemed to be in the sixteenth 
century. His process of reasoning applied to 
natural theology applies a fortiori, of course, 
to theology based upon what Macaulay called 
" revelation." " All divine truth is, according 
to the doctrine of the Protestant Churches, 
recorded in certain books. ... A Christian 
of the fifth century with a Bible is neither 
better nor worse situated than a Christian of 
the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor 
and natural acuteness being, of course, sup- 
posed equal." 

Nothing could better illustrate the trans- 
formation that the years have wrought in the 
Protestant attitude toward theology than the 
mere quotation of such a passage as the above. 
It is to be remembered that in writing it 
Macaulay hardly misrepresented the thought 
of his day in England and America. He 
perceived the Evangelical to be scarcely less 
bound by the traditions of the Fathers than 
the Tractarian, though, they were of course 



INTRODUCTION 3 

very different Fathers. The Nonconformist as 
well as the Churchman was to a considerable 
extent an antiquarian ; and the results of 
his antiquarian research, so far as they had 
theological significance, concerned an insti- 
tution known as the Church, rather than a 
body of truth closely related to life. The 
" Leben Jesu " of Strauss had been published 
but five years, and its author was in disgrace 
even in Germany. George Eliot's translation 
was not yet begun, nor to be issued until 
1846. Few English students of theology read 
German, and some of those who did, read it 
upon the sly. And twenty years were still to 
pass before Colenso should precipitate the 
great question of the Higher Criticism of the 
Bible upon his unwilling countrymen. 

The Unitarians kept something of the tem- 
per of the elder Maurice, whose enthusiasm 
we are told " went out, like that of so many 
others of his class, into politics rather than 
religion." * The avowed champions of unbe- 
lief had not yet revolted against the crass 
misrepresentations and travesties of religion 
which men like the elder Mill were not 
ashamed to perpetuate, and which, to the 

1 Tulloch, Religious Thought in Britain, p. 263. 



4 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

amazement of later generations, seem to have 
been not without some influence upon the 
thought of his far greater son. The more in- 
tellectual among the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents were largely occupied with barren 
doctrinal controversy. In the realm of philo- 
sophy, students at the universities heard much 
talk of " progress of the species, dark ages, 
and the like, but the hungry young looked up 
to their spiritual nurses, and for food were 
bidden eat the east wind." 1 

It may be answered that when Macaulay 
wrote his " Edinburgh Review " essay on Yon 
Ranke's " History of the Popes," from which 
I have quoted, a new era had been ushered in 
by Coleridge and Maurice, torch-bearers of 
the higher and richer thought of Germany. 
This is true, and with them should be num- 
bered Thomas Erskine ; while Wordsworth's 
parallel influence in the realm of poetry, and 
Carlyle's in the field of general literature, 
but especially of the ethical interpretation 
of history, is not to be overlooked. Maurice, 
the near spiritual kinsman of both Coleridge 
and Erskine, had but just published his "King- 
dom of Christ," — it appeared in 1838, — 

1 Sartor Resarius, bk. ii. e. iii.; Tulloch, p. 170. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

and the sub-title of this notable work, "Hints 
on the Principles, Ordinances, and Constitu- 
tion of the Catholic Church, in Letters to a 
Member of the Society of Friends," reveals 
that institutional bent or tendency which has 
proven itself to be at once the strength and 
the limitation of so many English theologi- 
ans. 

Nor should the fact be overlooked that 
it always takes time, and what often seems 
to be a disproportionate and unreasonable 
length of time, for the results of theological 
investigation to find their way out of the study 
and the treatise into the general thought 
and speech of men. It is not enough to say 
that the man of the street does not care about 
such things. He probably does not care 
about their mere academic aspect, but in their 
relation to life they interest him and often 
interest him profoundly. It frequently hap- 
pens, moreover, that the " man of letters " is 
among the worst informed and the least in- 
telligent of the observers of theological and 
religious phenomena. Like the cockney who 
counts his ignorance of country ways the 
cachet of his town-bred superiority, he chooses 
to hold aloof from any special acquaintance 



6 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

with this branch of what he very likely calls 
a pseudo-science. If he be a portrayer of the 
manners of the time, as an essayist or a 
novelist, he has of course a theologian among 
the lay figures in his studio. Occasionally he 
makes large use of him, profiting especially 
by that infirmity of position, that feebleness 
of " stance," to filch a word from golf, which 
makes him such an easy prey to the attacks of 
his master ; for, be it observed, this figure is 
always set up to be overthrown. He is care- 
fully provided beforehand with so much of 
the theological equipment of day before yes- 
terday as his master's odds and ends of yes- 
terday may suffice to vanquish. An excellent 
type of this sort of creature appears in the 
late Mr. Harold Frederic's " Theron Ware." 
Mrs. Humphry Ward laid him under tribute 
for the original of " Robert Elsmere." He it 
is who is periodically ground to powder when 
Professor Goldwin Smith essays Old Testa- 
ment topics ; while the man who clamors from 
time to time in the newspapers and maga- 
zines for a " prayer-test " would find his 
occupation gone without him. 

The contention of Macaulay with reference 
to theology is only another case in point. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Though tricked out in seemly dress enough, it 
was in reality nothing less than a damning ac- 
cusation, and none could have known better 
than he that the doom of theology as a fit sub- 
ject for the consideration of intelligent men 
would be sounded if he should succeed in sub- 
stantiating his claim. Nor is this the less true 
because many theologians of the most ortho- 
dox type would have rejoiced to agree with 
him; for the ultimate nature of a current 
theological system has been a favorite premiss 
of the most devout believers as well as the 
most cynical scoffers, though they have rea- 
soned from it to utterly diverse conclusions. 
Indeed, among those who read this essay was 
very likely one man of thirty-nine from whom 
Macaulay's contention would have won a glad 
assent, — a man whose efforts in behalf of 
the dependent classes in English society were 
just beginning to assume influential propor- 
tions, and who was one day to be counted 
among the most significant and beneficent 
forces in the social life of the century. The 
pronounced evangelicalism of Lord Ashley, 
better known to the world as the seventh Earl 
of Shaftesbury, was of precisely the type that 
dreaded theological change, and was pre- 



8 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

pared to deny the possibility of any appre- 
ciable theological development, while it rev- 
erenced theology as the mother of sciences. 
Though Lord Shaftesbury never laid claim to 
the gift of tongues, he possessed one tongue 
whose facility, eloquence, and occasional acerb- 
ity made it quite equal to the work of many. 
" I have not," said he on one occasion, " that 
faculty for mild speech which distinguishes 
some persons in this country." * He justified 
the confession by characterizing "Ecce Homo " 
as " the most pestilential book ever vomited 
from the jaws of hell." 2 He " loathed with 
the utmost abhorrence " Colenso's book, even 
while with characteristic high-mindedness he 
protested against Bishop Gray's summary 
methods of disciplining its author. 3 He called 
heaven to witness how absolutely he ab- 
horred the theology of Jowett, 4 though he 
would not put him down by dishonoring his 
office. Perhaps most significant of all was his 
letter to Pusey during the " Essays and Ke- 
views " controversy, in which he said : " Time, 
space, and divergent opinions have separated 

1 Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Earl of 
Shaftesbury, K. G., iii. 160. 

2 Id. p. 164. » Id. p. 168. * Id. i. 170. 



INTRODUCTION 



us for many years. . . . We will fight about 
those another day; in this 'we must con- 
tend earnestly for the faith once delivered to 
the Saints ; ' and it must be done together 



now." 1 



Yet at this very period, though neither 
Macaulay nor Shaftesbury was clear eyed 
enough to discern the signs of its advent, an 
era of theological development was opening 
which in its ultimate results is likely to prove 
to be the most significant since the Reforma- 
tion. The day of the barren deistic rational- 
ist of the eighteenth century was past. The 
Evangelical Revival as a revival had practi- 
cally spent its force, though its substantial 
fruits remained. The German leaven was at 
work. Schleiermacher, who died in 1834, was 
still little but a name to most Englishmen 
and Americans, with the exception of such 
as knew their Coleridge well. But his inter- 
preters were at the door. The ethics of Kant 
were receiving practical application to the 
problems of life at the hands of Carlyle, and 
coming to such men as Froude like a new 
gospel. 

1 Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Earl of 
Shaftesbury, K. G., iii. 166. 



10 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

With respect to Hegel and his influence 
the case was somewhat different. There is a 
story that Comte once expressed a half -petu- 
lant wish that Hegel would publish a little 
book summing up his philosophy " succinctly 
and in French ; " to which the great philoso- 
pher replied that his system was capable of 
expression " ni succinctement, ni en f rancais." 
The saying, though doubtless apocryphal, is 
none the less significant. The practical Eng- 
lishman with his institutional tendency was 
not very likely to become a student of so 
great and abstruse a system, and still less 
likely to become its apostle. In Germany upon 
the appearance of Hegel's philosophy, " The- 
ology," as a distinguished critic has said, 
" was happy at the supreme good fortune that 
had come to her, — her ability to speak in 
her own tongue the thoughts of her old en- 
emy." 1 But among English-speaking peoples 
the practical theological outcome of the He- 
gelian philosophy has long been closely asso- 
ciated with the work of Strauss. Strauss has 
been cleverly characterized as the Franken- 
stein of Hegelianism. He was its unnatural 
by-product, — made, not begotten ; and he has 

1 Fairbairn, Christ in Theology, p. 222. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

perhaps done more than any other writer to 
bring German influence in theology under 
suspicion among the mass of British and 
American Christians. Even at this late day 
great numbers of intelligent persons, to whom 
the works of Baur and his Tubingen brethren 
are sealed books, know the name and dread 
the power of Hegel. Of the real and abid- 
ing service to the faith which the Tubingen 
school rendered in compelling the adoption 
of a new and scientific historical method in 
theology they know nothing. Shaftesbury and 
Pusey, with the multitudes for whom they 
stood, when they thought of theological devel- 
opment, beheld it branded with the mark of 
the Teutonic Beast. 

In America the situation was apparently 
though not essentially different. The ultra- 
Calvinism of the Fathers had from its very 
nature compelled "improvement." It was a 
perpetual challenge to men's reason. There 
was a haunting power about it quite distinct 
from its almost regal place among the systems, 
that forbade its contemptuous or cavalier 
rejection. Its preeminent qualities fascinated 
as well as repelled the student. Hence arose 
endless more or less successful tamperings 



12 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

with it. It stood like some vast structure, — 
a tour de force of other days, — ill adapted 
to the needs of the present, but too splendid 
to be destroyed; though its interior might 
be remodeled, and so many minor changes 
wrought upon its outside as to tone down its 
pristine ruggedness and, it must be added, 
belittle its original majesty. So in almost 
every generation after Edwards there was a 
new school to which a newer school succeeded. 
Thus the general notion of theological 
change and development was less strange to 
the men of New than to those of Old Eng- 
land. But it is to be noted that it was change 
within definite limits. The content of revela- 
tion was fixed. There was a certain sum of 
truth delivered to men. It might be rear- 
ranged. Deeper research might result in the 
discovery of heretofore hidden things. The 
immediate limits of the mine in which it was 
man's privilege to delve might be unknown to 
him, but they were none the less limits, pre- 
cisely as a " coal measure " may reach for an 
indeterminate distance into a mountain-side, 
but still be defined by the general shape and 
size of the mountain. There was an academic 
assent given to Bobinson's historic dictum 



INTRODUCTION 13 

that more truth might yet break out from the 
Word of God, but it was a rather hard say- 
ing even when the Word of God to men 
was supposed to be altogether included within 
the covers of a book. In short, the present 
dispensation was generally admitted to be 
an ordo ordinatus rather than an ordo ordi- 
nans. 

Here and there, to be sure, a voice was 
raised in protest ; none clearer or braver than 
Horace BushnelTs. Yet in a singular sense 
Bushnell stood 

" Between two worlds, — one dead, 
The other powerless to be born." 

He reminds us of those souls in Tintoretto's 
great Judgment Scene who, though arisen, 
are not yet wholly risen. The bars of their 
earthly prison-house have burst and they are 
living in the free upper air, but not yet un- 
hampered by the clods. This is in no sense 
to belittle BushnelTs place or work. Had he 
cut loose from all that was temporary in the 
thought of his day, it is possible that our 
debt to him might have been less rather than 
greater. For in the literal rather than the 
tropical sense, Bushnell's work has proven 
itself to be profoundly conservative. His 



14 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

greatness is the substantial greatness of the 
reinterprete^ the rebuilder, and the reformer, 
rather than the notoriety of the mere revolu- 
tionist. Had he held a different view of the 
Fall, for instance, his ability to interpret the 
significance of the Atonement might conceiv- 
ably have been diminished rather than in- 
creased. Had he foreseen the significance of 
the new doctrine of Evolution, it is doubtful 
if his message to the men of his day with 
reference to Nature and the Supernatural 
would have been so intelligible and uplifting. 
While had he undertaken to grapple with the 
modern science of Biblical Criticism, he would 
have found it hard work to convince those 
about him that there was any common ground 
for them to stand on. 

As things were, he found, to quote the 
luminous words of his latest biographer, that 
" relief was needed at four points : first, from 
a revivalism that ignored the law of Christian 
growth; second, from a conception of the 
Trinity bordering on tritheism; third, from 
a view of miracles that implied a suspension 
of natural law ; and fourth, from a theory of 
the Atonement that had grown almost shad- 
owy under ' improvements/ yet still failed to 



INTRODUCTION 15 

declare the law of human life. The time had 
also come when a rational, scientific, cause- 
and-effect habit of thought was imperatively 
required, not only on these four points, but 
in the whole realm of theology." 1 

Now it is preeminently such a "rational, 
scientific, cause-and-effect habit of thought" 
that has been exerting its influence upon 
every branch of human knowledge during the 
six decades since Macaulay assured the world 
of 1840 that theology was not a progressive 
science. It has been very learnedly and plau- 
sibly contended that the theological temper 
has always been either implicitly or overtly 
hostile to scientific progress ; and the conten- 
tion voices one of those half truths which 
deceive quite as many as they instruct. The 
warfare that has seemed to exist between The- 
ology and Science has really been a conflict 
between institutionalism and science. It is 
the priest who has laboriously and painfully 
reared the walls and completed the roof of his 
particular system, often at expense of utmost 
personal sacrifice be it remembered, to whom 
the structural change that accompanies nat- 
ural growth seems dreadful. There has been 

1 T. T. Munger, Horace Bushnell, p. 387. 



16 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

no provision for it in his plan. So when 
the prophet comes to tell him either in the 
name of religion or of natural science that his 
whole structural system is wrong, and must 
continue to be wrong until he ceases to do 
violence to the organic by classing it with the 
inorganic, he is incontinently met with bell, 
book, and candle. Yet the prophet is no less 
a theologian than the priest; nay, in most 
instances he is the greater and the more per- 
spicacious theologian, in so far as he sees the 
subject-matter of his science to be living and 
continuous rather than dead and completed 
revelation. It would be quite possible, too, to 
counter upon those who maintain that science 
has always found theology at odds with it 
by two equally plausible contentions. One is 
that a vast number of the discoveries whereby 
scientific advance has been accomplished have 
been made possible by those very systems of 
education and schools of learning which the 
church and priesthood have always fostered. 
The other is that it is to the theological im- 
plications of his scientific hypotheses that the 
investigator often owes no small part of the 
popular interest which it is to his advantage 
to arouse. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

Swedenborg, for instance, anticipated in his 
mystical way the nebular hypothesis. Kant, 
as early as 1755, gave it form and practi- 
cally established its scientific basis. Here was 
the doctrine of evolution in embryo, waiting 
for general application throughout the whole 
realm of human thought. But it attracted 
comparatively little interest among those mul- 
titudes, the horizon of whose intelligence it 
was finally to broaden so wonderfully, until 
Darwin had formulated the theory of Natural 
Selection, and his disciples began to expound 
what they supposed to be its theological 
significance. Then the world of plain people 
began to attend to the new teaching. A 
feeling went abroad that here was something 
to be dealt with, pro or con ; and the result has 
been of the greatest possible moment. Darwin, 
to be sure, carefully avoided this phase of the 
discussion. But Tyndall and Huxley and Clif- 
ford welcomed it so heartily that it is scarcely 
too much to say that they are known as theo- 
logians by many who would be sorely puzzled 
to tell whether or not they had rendered any 
considerable service to pure science ; while in 
America great numbers of intelligent people 
would forever remain in ignorance of Pro- 



18 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

f essor John Fiske's special contribution to the 
doctrine of evolution, had he not wisely and 
suggestively expounded it in certain little the- 
ological treatises that found their thousands 
of readers while his " Cosmic Philosophy " 
was waiting for its hundreds. 

Keturning now for the moment to Macau- 
lay's thesis, we may fairly reduce it to this 
syllogism. Systems of thought which are 
constitutionally intolerant of development are 
doomed to extinction. Theology is thus consti- 
tutionally intolerant of development. There- 
fore theology is doomed to extinction. It is, 
however, only in the light of the evolutionary 
notion of life as a perpetual adaptation to 
environment that we reach this conclusion. 
Macaulay by no means went so far. He seems 
to have felt instinctively that some provision 
must be made for the ineradicable tendency 
of men to cherish superstition ; and this pro- 
vision he believed that the Church of Rome 
might still be found to furnish when the 
ruins of St. Paul's should adorn the sketch- 
books of cultivated New Zealand travelers. 
His difficulty lay in accepting his own major 
premiss ; the minor constituted his principal 
contention. Our difficulty lies with the minor ; 



INTRODUCTION 19 

the major we are coming to regard as almost 
axiomatic. It is quite true that the change of 
position has been made unwillingly, and that 
multitudes of honest folk have contended that 
a theological system which was capable of 
development could not really interpret eternal 
truth to the minds and hearts of men. But 
that is only to say that theology has not 
found herself exempt from the same hard 
conditions that have forced reconstruction in 
every other field of human thought. She has, 
like astronomy and anthropology and medi- 
cine, been forced to discover some practicable 
path of progress between the rocks of dog- 
matism and the gulf of superstition. It is 
useless to deny that there is any such path, 
and to claim that the man who searches for 
it is bound to find, like the victim of Poe's 
" Pit and Pendulum" adventure, that the wall 
is so arranged as of necessity to thrust him 
who would fain creep about its foot into the 
abyss. The human mind will not consent to 
be thus put to confusion. Comte essayed a 
hopeless task when he undertook to convince 
the world that the themes which had in all 
ages fascinated some of the greatest men were 
not germane to the human intellect ; and 



20 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

that it was the part of the true philosopher 
to relegate them to the limbo of chimeras. 
The dogmatism of negation is even more 
antipathetic to the mass of men than the 
dogmatism of assertion. Nothing can be 
more profoundly unscientific than an a priori 
denial of religious experience, or an unwill- 
ingness to give candid and unbiased attention 
to religious phenomena. Nor can anything 
bring true science into greater contempt than 
the refusal to regard the investigation of these 
phenomena and the generalizations which 
such investigation appears to justify, as wor- 
thy of the best thought and endeavor which 
men can bring to the task ; unless, indeed, it 
be an assumption upon the theologian's part 
that all the significant facts in his particular 
realm have been discovered; that investiga- 
tion, except for the purposes of rearrange- 
ment, is therefore futile ; that the content 
of his budget of premisses is fixed ; and that 
his true work is merely to manipulate them 
in accordance with the well-worn processes of 
a deductive logic. 

It is my purpose in the chapters which 
follow to state a condition ; to propound a 
question ; and to suggest an answer. Condi- 



INTRODUCTION 21 

tion, question, and answer all have their theo- 
logical implications. But the theological sub- 
structure which they imply appears to me to 
be in no sense a finished product. Christianity 
is not a completed system gloriously fash- 
ioned after the similitude of a temple, but 
an organism instinct with the power of an 
endless life. Its helpful application to the 
affairs of men depends less upon the discov- 
ery of some architectonic plan, than upon ac- 
quaintance with the power and principle of 
its development. In our reverent search after 
this Dynamic of Christianity we shall first 
look at the theological, religious, and social 
conditions amid which it is at work. 



II 

THE ZEITGEIST 

The reader will remember that on the even- 
ing after Faust's compact with Mephistopheles 
he sat down to translate the prologue of St. 
John's Gospel into German. This, by reason 
of the compact, had become a forbidden occu- 
pation, and he was at once interrupted by the 
howling of his dog, in whom just then his evil 
genius chanced to be embodied ; but not until 
he had opportunity to begin debate with him- 
self upon the great question which the pro- 
logue raises. 

" ' T is writ, ' In the Beginning was the Word ! ' 

I pause, perplexed ! Who now will help afford ? 

I cannot the mere word so highly prize ; 

I must translate it otherwise, 

If by the Spirit guided as I read. 
' In the Beginning was the Sense ! ' Take heed. 

The import of this primal sentence weigh, 

Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray ! 

Is force creative then of Sense the dower ? 
4 In the Beginning was the Power ! ' 

Thus should it stand : yet while the line I trace, 



THE ZEITGEIST 23 

A something warns me, once more to efface. 
The Spirit aids ! from anxious scruples freed, 
I write, * In the Beginning was the Deed ! ' " 

Faust, part i. 876-89, Swanwick's trans. 



It is a tribute to the prophetic element in 
Goethe's genius that as early as 1808 — and 
very probably a score of years earlier — he 
should thus have made Faust forecast the 
philosophical temper of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. It has been eminently critical in its 
attitude toward received opinion in every de- 
partment of life ; and it has often chosen to 
deal with phenomena as though they were 
ultimate realities. The " thing in itself " in 
the scientific thought of the century has been 
the Deed rather than the Word or the Power. 
I do not mean, of course, that outside the 
school of Comte men have chosen to defend 
this as a thesis ; but they have been willing to 
accept it as a rule of life and thought. 

Their experience, however, has not been 
satisfying. As the century grew old, it be- 
came increasingly evident that they could 
never rest in Faust's position, though they 
might sojourn there for a time. A somewhat 
larger view of the sphere and scope of man 
has been accepted. Phenomenon though he 



24 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

be, set amid kindred phenomena, there is still 
noumenon-stuff in him. Something in his 
personality bespeaks his kinship with the 
Power behind the Deed — the Reason which 
the Word utters. As the shallower and more 
materialistic scientific doctrine of the first 
three quarters of the century was forecast by 
Goethe in criticising the prologue of St. John, 
so the deeper and more vital faith of its later 
years has been suggested by Browning in his 
comment upon the prologue of Genesis. 

" I find first 
Writ down for very A B C of fact, 
* In the Beginning God made heaven and earth ;' 
From which, no matter with what lisp, I spell 
And speak you out a consequence — that man, 
Man, — as befits the made, the inferior thing, — 
Purposed, since made, to grow, not make in turn, 
Yet forced to try and make, else fail to grow, — 
Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gain 
The good beyond him, — which attempt is growth, — 
Repeats God's process in man's due degree, 
Attaining man's proportionate result, — 
Creates, no, but resuscitates perhaps." 

The Ring and the Book — Prologue. 

The contrast between these utterances of 
two great interpreters of life separated by 
fourscore years is even more significant than 
at once appears. It extends to the manner as 
well as the matter of their prophecy. Goethe's 



THE ZEITGEIST 25 

word is graceful, but hollow and cynical. It 
is the message of one who has compassed life 
in its length and breadth only to find it of 
more than doubtful quality — worth beautify- 
ing and bedecking, perhaps, but to be adorned 
as a stage is adorned that a play may be elab- 
orately produced. He says in effect to man, 

" Thou 'rt after all — just what thou art, 
Put on thy head a wig with countless locks, 
Raise to a cubitus height thy learned socks, 
Still thou remainest ever — what thou art." 

Faust, part i. 1451-4, Swanwick's trans. 

Browning is as negligent of the Graces as 
Goethe is worshipful toward them. His style 
is as chaotic as that of his predecessor is 
orderly and finished. But the attitude of the 
man himself is ever prophetic and expectant. 
He looks to see things come to pass, and sum- 
mons men to the exercise of their high pre- 
rogative of putting compulsion upon events. 
The very ruggedness of his method seems to 
reflect the abundance of the unorganized 
material which he sees lying in rough masses 
about him, waiting the constructive genius of 
the architect, bravely seconded as he would 
have it by the honest handiwork of the mason. 
Indeed, the relation and the contrast between 



26 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the two poets are not unlike those which a very 
acute critic has discerned to exist between 
the Italian Renaissance and the Protestant 
Reformation. The outlook of the former is 
toward culture, the exercise and enjoyment 
of balanced and regulated faculty; that of 
the latter toward religion, the genesis of new 
beliefs as to God and man, and the impulse 
to embody them in action. 1 

It is not to be denied that the theological 
situation as it faced us at last century's end 
was primarily suggestive of chaos. The Zeit- 
geist had proved to be no respecter of great 
theological names or systems ; and those who 
have rejoiced to see the wreck of time-hon- 
ored structures, or who have lifted up their 
voices to prophesy the passing of theology 
altogether from the sphere of rational human 
interest, have seemed able to enroll Time and 
the Hour among their allies. Two very stub- 
born facts, however, have maintained their 
ground amid the confusion. One is that the 
general subject-matter of theology — the raw 
material with which it deals — appears to pos- 
sess permanent interest for men. They may 
grow weary of the theological terminology of 

1 Fairbairn, Christ in Theology, p. 137. 



THE ZEITGEIST 27 

their day, and in their disgust fancy that in 
throwing it away they dispose of the problems 
which it inadequately expresses. Yet in an- 
other form the problems recur. It is a far cry 
from Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad to Profes- 
sor John Fiske. But the challenge which the 
existence of evil issues to the New England 
evolutionist is just as compelling as it ever 
was to the creator of the great Idumean sheik 
and his three friends. Between an Alexan- 
drian Neo-Platonist of the third century and 
a Bampton lecturer at the end of the nine- 
teenth, great gulfs of experience would seem 
to be fixed ; yet the human soul puts the same 
question to Mr. Inge that it asked Plotinus. 1 
The other fact is that no great and in- 
fluential principle ever finds its way into the 
thought of men without exciting immediate 
interest as to its theological implications. If 
theological systems be in vogue, there is, as 
was suggested in the Introduction, an anx- 
ious canvassing of each new principle and 
theory to determine its bearings with refer- 
ence to the accepted modes of thought. If, 
on the other hand, systems totter, and perhaps 
require more substantiation at the hands of 

1 Cf. Inge, Christian Mysticism. 



28 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

faith than they furnish to it, hope springs 
eternal that the new truth may either revital- 
ize the old categories, or furnish a sufficient 
reason for their abandonment by supplying 
better ones. 

Probably these principles have never been 
better illustrated than in the changes that 
have been wrought through the general accept- 
ance of the theory of development, as it has 
found scientific expression during the last fifty 
years. There seemed at first to be no limit 
to the ravages which it might commit among 
the systems. It set at naught the old notion 
of cataclysmic creation. It did not appear to 
comport well with the Idea of Divinity gener- 
ally held in Western Christendom. The whole 
universe conceived as an elaborate machine 
seemed to be thrown out of gear by the intro- 
duction of this new theory of it. Law bade 
fair to usurp the place of God. Method was 
apotheosized. There was no place for reve- 
lation. The supernatural was bound to be- 
come an outworn term. Miracle was not to 
be thought of in an orderly universe. All 
experience would eventually be expressed in 
terms of the material, and if behind the visi- 
ble frame of things some ultimate force had 



THE ZEITGEIST 29 

to be posited, the most that we were permit- 
ted to say of it was that it was unknowable, 
and* the largest concession that could be made 
to the childishness of those whose heart and 
flesh still cried out for a living God was to 
print the Unknowable with a capital initial. 
The brain was fitted to secrete thought as the 
liver secreted bile ; though if, by chance, so- 
called religious thought were secreted, it was 
a sort of by-product not to be counted to the 
brain's credit. Christianity was a mere pass- 
ing way-mark of human immaturity. The 
Church was engaged in an immoral calling 
while it countenanced the teaching of religion 
as touching ultimate realities. Society was 
helpless in the grasp of Evolution, and the 
Survival of the Fittest, like a nineteenth 
century Minotaur, contradicted every holiest 
instinct of the human heart by demanding its 
tale of victims, not from the fair and beau- 
tiful, but from the weak and dependent. 

It was some such prospect as this that the 
Gospel of Evolution spread before the eyes of 
multitudes of men when it was first preached 
by advocates who had but a meagre concep- 
tion of its philosophical foundations. Men 
heard, and found themselves in a strait be- 



30 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

twixt two. The more intelligent among them 
were quick to perceive that a great truth had 
been discovered. They could not fail to re- 
spond instinctively to its appeal. But multi- 
tudes also perceived quite as instinctively that, 
as at first expounded, it was likely to put them 
to permanent intellectual confusion. Its advo- 
cates seemed to contradict as much experi- 
ence as they amplified and explained. Hence 
it followed that men everywhere took sides 
with reference to it, some blindly, and some 
intelligently and hopefully. From this very 
fact the new principle proved to be a disturb- 
ing, sometimes apparently a disintegrating, 
element among the systems of thought. Here 
it threatened destruction ; there it inspired a 
hope of reconstruction. The more intimately 
the vital interests of men were concerned, the 
more profound and painful was the agitation. 
Now the mutual relations of natural science 
and theology at the time of the promulgation 
of the theory of development were of a sort 
to render each somewhat antipathetic to the 
other. Theology as a science had been ham- 
pered and confined through its subservience, 
or supposed subservience, to an institution. 
In all Roman Catholic and in most Protestant 



THE ZEITGEIST 31 

lands it was under some authority other than 
that of a simple law of truth, and was forced 
to square its conclusions, if it could, not 
merely with the spirit, but with the form of 
dogma, — dogma being in too many cases 
unscientific dogma, based less upon observa- 
tion than upon a process of deduction from 
inadequate premisses. Theology was so occu- 
pied with the Whence and the Whither and 
the Why of life that it was much too con- 
temptuous of the When, the Where, and the 
How. It was entirely honest in its intent to 
go down deep and to reach up high ; but it 
was careless of a great deal of truth which, 
near at hand and close to earth, seemed too 
commonplace for intimate relation to its lofty 
purposes. 

Natural Science in its revival dealt eagerly 
with just this truth. It found a vast field for 
its energies. Investigation there proved so 
rich and fruitful that the scope of science was 
mightily enlarged. With the key of the the- 
ory of development at hand, Nature's cipher 
was translated at a surprising rate. Answers 
to the scientist's questions of When, Where, 
and How poured forth in such abundance, that 
he and his disciples were fain to pull down 



32 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

their old treasuries and build greater, assured 
that here were all the goods they needed for 
indefinite future sustenance. They were se- 
verely condemnatory of the theologian who 
had missed these things ; contemptuous, if he 
failed to share their enthusiasm at the new 
meanings which they now saw all about them ; 
not a little restive, too, that he should continue 
to insist that other things still existed, and 
that their new-found principle might prove to 
be, after all, proximate rather than ultimate. 

To this period of open warfare or armed 
neutrality between the biologist and the the- 
ologian a calmer mood has succeeded. A 
suspicion seems to have been born in the 
heart of each that his neighbor's contentions 
may be quite as likely to represent the com- 
plement as the contrary of his own. In 
point of fact, leading Protestant theologians 
have proven to be far more complaisant than 
the naturalists here. The wisest of them 
have shown themselves entirely hospitable 
to the theory of development. They had 
learned, however, by a more or less bitter ex- 
perience, that every great principle "which 
is seized with rapture by the imagination 
and imperfectly apprehended by the rea- 



THE ZEITGEIST 33 

son " * may, even though true in itself, lead 
men in the wroug direction. The shallower 
and less philosophical naturalists have there- 
fore sometimes been inclined to taunt the 
theologians with their change of front in face 
of what threatened to he the assaults of the 
evolutionists. But it always remains for the 
Protestant to reply that his apparent change 
of front in face of evolutionary advance has 
been in no sense because he saw in it a new 
foe about to attack him in flank ; it has been 
rather the rearrangement of position neces- 
sitated by the accession of considerable rein- 
forcements. It has been made not without 
some unfortunate confusion, to be sure, not 
without some suspicion and unwillingness 
here and there, but it has been made, for all 
that. Moreover, the true Protestant rejoices 
in his ability to make it. Such power of adap- 
tation is an essential attribute, he believes, of 
a really scientific theology. He is inclined to 
answer the taunt of the naturalist as Leib- 
nitz answered Bossuet, when the latter asked 
him whether he could find a way to hinder 
the Protestant Churches from being eternally 
variable : " It suits us, Monseigneur, to be- 

1 Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 412. 



34 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

long to this moving and eternally variable 
Church." 

The century closed before this confusion 
had entirely resolved itself into order. Yet it 
has left theology expectant. Men are filled 
with a large assurance that when the new 
alignment shall be effected, it will make the 
defense of the old sacred places more im- 
pregnable than ever. Of course one does not 
have to go far to find the grumbler and the 
man who sighs for the old systems and the 
old watchwords ; which is only to say that 
the Great Twin Brethren, Tradition and Cus- 
tom, find as many worshipers among theo- 
logians as among soldiers and sailors. It may 
properly enough be asked, however, what defi- 
nite grounds there are for this more confident 
and expectant attitude of the theologian. I 
am content to designate four or five of the 
many that might be indicated. 

1. As the apostles of the Doctrine of De- 
velopment have thought themselves through, 
have come, that is, to see the real range and 
scope of their own hypothesis, they have 
tacitly if not explicitly recognized the theolo- 
gian's rights, even though they may not like 
his name. Whether he find it a hard or easy 



THE ZEITGEIST 35 

task to give the world a reason for the par- 
ticular faith that is in him, his raison d'etre 
is scarcely in need of defense to-day. 

Men like the late John Fiske and G. J. 
Romanes have borne distinct testimony to this 
fact. Professor Fiske, as was intimated in the 
Introduction, himself became a theologian of 
note. Mr. Romanes, with a frankness so ad- 
mirable that it ought never to be abused by 
any claim that he was made the captive of 
Canon Gore's 1 orthodox spear and bow, has 
set down in black and white the record of 
his own experience. The story of his renun- 
ciation of his faith at the supposed demand of 
biology and its implications has become classic. 

" And forasmuch as I am far from being 
able to agree with those who affirm that the 
twilight doctrine of the ' new faith ' is a de- 
sirable substitute for the waning splendour of 
c the old/ I am not ashamed to confess that 
with this virtual negation of God the universe 
to me has lost its soul of loveliness ; and al- 
though from henceforth the precept to i work 
while it is day ' will doubtless but gain an 
intensified force from the terribly intensified 
meaning of the words that ' the night cometh 

1 Now Bishop of Worcester. 



36 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

when no man can work/ yet when at times I 
think, as at times I must, of the appalling 
contrast between the hallowed glory of that 
creed which once was mine, and the lonely 
mystery of existence as now I find it, — at 
such times I shall ever feel it impossible to 
avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature 
is susceptible. For whether it be due to my 
intelligence not being sufficiently advanced to 
meet the requirements of the age, or whether 
it be due to the memory of those sacred asso- 
ciations which to me at least were the sweet- 
est that life has given, I cannot but feel that 
for me, and for others who think as I do, there 
is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamil- 
ton, — Philosophy, having become a medita- 
tion, not merely of death, but of annihilation, 
the precept Know thyself has become trans- 
formed into the terrific oracle to (Edipus : — 

" c Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.' " l 

These words must have been written as early 
as 1876. 2 At his death in 1894 the same writer 
left a further record to this effect : — 

1 Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, Ed. Pref., p. 29. 

2 The Candid Examination of Theism, in the concluding 
chapter of which these words occur, was published in 1878, 



THE ZEITGEIST 37 

" I take it then as unquestionably true that 
this whole negative side of the subject proves 
a vacuum in the soul of man which nothing 
can fill save faith in God. Now take the posi- 
tive side. Consider the happiness of religious 
— and chiefly of the highest religious, i. e. 
Christian — - belief. It is a matter of fact that 
besides being most intense, it is most endur- 
ing, growing, and never staled by custom. In 
short, according to the universal testimony of 
those who have it, it differs from all other 
happiness not only in degree but in kind. 
Those who have it can usually testify to what 
they used to be without it. . . . So much 
for the individual. But positive evidence does 
not end here. Look at the effects of Christian 
belief as exercised on human society — first, 
by individual Christians on the family, etc. ; 
and, second, by the Christian Church on the 
world. All this may lead on to an argument 
from the adaptation of Christianity to human 
higher needs. All men must feel these needs 
more or less in proportion as their higher 

"but written, the author says, " several years ago." " I have 
refrained from publishing it," he remarks, "lest after hav- 
ing done so, I should find that more mature thoughts had 
modified the conclusions which the author sets forth." 

Thoughts on Religion, p. 9, note. 



38 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

natures, moral and spiritual, are developed. 
Now Christianity is the only religion which is 
adapted to meet them and, according to those 
who are alone able to testify, it does so most 
abundantly. All these men, of every sect, 
nationality, etc., agree in their account of 
their subjective experience ; so as to this there 
can be no question. The only question is as 
to whether they were all deceived." 

A little further on he quotes two sets of 
quatrains with the following comment : — 

" ' La vie est vaine : 
Un peu d' amour, 
Un peu de haine — 
Et puis — bon jour ! 

" * La vie est breve : 
Un peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de reve — 
Et puis — bon soir ! ' 

" The above is a terse and true criticism of 
this life without hope of a future one. Is it 
satisfactory? But Christian faith as a matter 
of fact changes it entirely. 

" ' The night has a thousand eyes, 
And the day but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole world dies 
With the setting sun. 



THE ZEITGEIST 39 

" * The mind has a thousand eyes, 
And the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 
When love is done.' " 1 

Friedrich Nietzsche — one of the very few 
really consistent atheists the last century knew, 
most consistent, perhaps, in the insanity to 
which he logically followed his negations — 
would have said that this changed attitude of 
Romanes was only the working out of the 
poison of Christianity with which he was 
prenatally tainted. But in point of fact, as 
Newman was said to have " lived over again 
in his experience the course of Latin His- 
tory/ ' 2 so Romanes illustrated in his brief 
but busy life the experience of nineteenth 
century theology. I have quoted from him at 
considerable length, less because I am just 
now concerned to substantiate or to use his 
conclusions, than because he exemplifies so 
well my contention that the facts of religion 
and the rational treatment of them which is 
the essence of theology have a real claim 
upon intelligent men. 

2. Another substantiation of the more ex- 
pectant and reasonably confident attitude of 

1 Romanes, Thoughts on Religion, pp. 162-3. 

2 Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 412. 



40 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

theology during the last few years is found 
in its larger recognition and adoption of the 
historic method. 1 Herein it has half unwit- 
tingly come into closer touch with physical 
science, and their mutual antipathy has less- 
ened proportionately. Moreover, in the pur- 
suit of its historical researches, theology has 
found in the development hypothesis an unex- 
pectedly clever and devoted coadjutor. The 
evolution key unlocks doors in theology as 
elsewhere which had before seemed hope- 
less. 

The principle of continuity has long been 
recognized as becoming to Theism. It com- 
ports with a belief in an omniscient, omni- 
present, and ever-working God. Without it 
there is grave danger lest a man's God prove 
too small for his world. The heart and flesh 
of man do not cry out for a demiurge occa- 
sionally breaking in upon the world of his 
creation with cataclysmic interruption of its 
order ; but for a living God, able and willing 
to sustain by inherent vital force an organ- 
ism which He planted and which He still 

1 Cf. Addresses of Professor Alexander Gosman and Pro- 
fessor G. P. Fisher, International Congregational Council, 
Boston, 1899, Proceedings of Council. 



THE ZEITGEIST 41 

nurtures. As the principle of continuity 
comports well with Theism and in a sense dis- 
tinguishes it from mere Deism, so the Doc- 
trine of Evolution is but one application of 
this principle in the sphere of creative method. 
It contradicts no first principle essential to 
theology's existence. It explains much. It 
promises to explain more. 

3. Still again, theology has discovered that 
some of the implications of the development 
hypothesis which its more dogmatic expositors 
once proclaimed to be destructive of theologi- 
cal positions have really substantiated them. 
The Gibeonites who were feared as spoilers 
in the distance become hewers of wood and 
drawers of water when we really enter their 
land. There is perhaps no better illustration 
of this than that offered by the treatment 
which evolution has accorded to the doctrine 
of final causes. It threatened to rule Paley's 
argument from design, illustrated by the 
watch found upon a desert shore, out of 
court altogether ; not so much because it was 
fundamentally false as because it was alto- 
gether inadequate. In thus confounding Paley 
a certain school of evolutionists seemed to 
think that all teleology was forever put to 



42 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

confusion. It only remained for another and 
wiser school to show that the old argument 
from design was meagre rather than false, and 
that it failed because it undertook to express 
a vital process in mechanical terms. As time 
has passed, a larger place has been found for 
teleology than the old doctrine of final causes 
ever dared to claim. There is a significant 
note in Romanes' " Thoughts on Religion " 
to the effect that in a projected book he must 
show how much better a treatise Butler might 
have written had he known about evolution, 1 
and he might have included Paley and the 
essayists of the Bridgewater Treatises in the 
same category. 

4. Then, finally, there is the confidence of 
the practical Christianity of the time. The 
Church at large, though, as I shall show in 
a later chapter, her confessions of faith, her 
polities, and her practical activities are all 
more or less confused and ill-coordinated, is 
still vigorous with the vigor of healthful and 
hopeful even though untrained youth. The 
Church in the broad sense is not a decadent 
institution, though she may sometimes seem 
to be a distracted one. She is quick still — 

1 Thoughts on Religion, p. 182. 



THE ZEITGEIST 43 

perhaps quicker than ever before — to hear 
and heed the voice of the prophet. 

The century just closed has been charac- 
terized in an extraordinary degree by or- 
ganization under the general inspiration and 
direction of the Christian Church. Confining 
our view to Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, we 
may see four great organized movements 
which, during the century, have enlisted the 
gifts and the services of millions of Chris- 
tians. One of these is the Sunday-school. Its 
inception by Eobert Kaikes in Gloucester, 
England, belongs to the eighteenth century, 
but the real adaptation of the institution to 
the purposes of the Church is of the nine- 
teenth. On the American continent to-day 
there are nearly 150,000 of these schools, with 
1,500,000 officers and teachers and about 
12,000,000 pupils. 

A second significant organization arose in 
the middle of the century with the founding 
of the first Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion. This was followed in due time by the 
Young Women's Christian Association. One 
or both of these associations may now be 
found in more than forty countries, enrolling 
250,000 men and nearly 40,000 women. 



44 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

In 1881 an organization known as the 
Society of Christian Endeavor came into 
being. It seemed to have peculiar pertinence 
to conditions then existent in most Protestant 
churches. Expanding with astonishing rapid- 
ity, it came to represent in the closing years 
of the century 56,000 affiliated societies, with 
a membership of 3,400,000.! 

Meanwhile the Church has felt such an ac- 
cess of missionary zeal as has not been known 
since the first three centuries. The Christian 
missionary has penetrated into all quarters 
of the globe. He has come to represent a 
vital world-movement. Almost every branch 
of natural science, as well as anthropology, 
philology, geography, ethics, and comparative 
religion is under obligation to him; while his 
intimate acquaintance with religious thought 
abroad has reacted with telling power upon 
religious thought at home. All future histo- 
rians must reckon with him and his work. 

It is beside my present purpose to ask 
whether these manifestations of Christian 
vitality have been wisely inaugurated or 
are being directed to beneficent ends. I 

1 C. E. Jefferson, Address, International Congregational 
Council, Boston, 1899, Proceedings of Council, p. 308. 



THE ZEITGEIST 45 

am simply calling attention to them as phe- 
nomena, indicative of vast stores of energy 
gladly subject to the direction of religious 
impulse. It is perfectly idle to attempt to 
explain them away as manifestations of mere 
passing sentiment. They speak of willing 
gifts, devoted lives, deliberate intentions, and 
often consummately able leadership. These are 
only examples from a great and ever increas- 
ing store of similar organized activities. They 
represent the emphasis which the Church, fol- 
lowing Faust's suggestion, has during these 
years been placing upon the Deed. 

The Church thus vigorous in act — more 
vigorous, perhaps, than in any other century 
of her history — has a right to ask the theo- 
logian for some unifying and coordinating 
principle for the satisfaction of her mind and 
the guidance of her ever developing vital- 
ity. That some such principle exists she feels 
instinctively. There is too much Doing all 
the time to permit a doubt as to the existence 
of some Power behind the Deed, and some 
Dynamic which shall set forth the order and 
method of its working. It is when the Church 
puts this question to the world that she be- 
comes aware of the extent in which Doing 



46 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

has outrun Thinking in the century's life, 
and of the more or less incoherent state of the 
average man's thought upon the great and 
closely related subjects of theology, religion, 
and social life. 

I shall attempt in the three succeeding 
chapters to sketch the present state of popu- 
lar thought upon these themes, with a view to 
discover, if possible, some common principle 
which, even though generally unrecognized, 
may still aid us in our search for the Dynamic 
of Christianity. 



Ill 



THE PRESENT STATE OF POPULAR THEO- 
LOGICAL THOUGHT 

"But, Sir/' said Boswell to Johnson in a 
famous endeavor to defend the Presbyterians 
against that prejudiced worthy, "their doc- 
trine is the same with that of the Church of 
England. Their Confession of Faith and the 
Thirty-Nine Articles contain the same points, 
even the doctrine of Predestination." " Why, 
yes, Sir," answered Johnson, " predestination 
was a part of the clamour of the times, so it 
is mentioned in our articles, but with as little 
positiveness as could be." 1 

Johnson's prejudice, portentous as its pro- 
portions often were, was never able altogether 
to vanquish his good sense and keenness of vi- 
sion ; and in that phrase " the clamour of the 
times," he hit upon one secret of the stranger 
forms which theological speech has sometimes 
used. He was only saying in his ponderous 

1 Boswell's Johnson, Hill's ed., ii. 119. 



48 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

but still trenchant way, that there has been 
a fashion in theology as in almost every other 
department of science and philosophy. 

The general appeal to the Doctrine of Evo- 
lution and the insistence upon its recognition 
in every discussion of the day is due in some 
measure to the clamor of our time. This is 
in no sense to disparage it. It is only to say 
that it is to the fore to-day as the principle of 
the sovereignty of God was to the fore in the 
heyday of Calvinism, and that it is liable to a 
similarly exaggerated application. For better, 
for worse, all our theological thinking has to 
reckon with it. Just at present, however, we 
stand at a point where its substantiation of the 
main positions of theology is much more ap- 
parent to the man of the schools than to the 
man of the street. The former has generally 
recognized the need of a reorganization of 
system and is hopefully expectant. The latter, 
slow to give up the old to which he has be- 
come habituated, is yet doubtful whether he 
may not be forced to give it up. As a system, 
he has grown accustomed to uphold or to an- 
tagonize it, and were it to crumble he would 
miss it equally in either case ; for it is a tru- 
ism of experience that one misses an old and 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 49 

cherished antagonist little less than an old 
and cherished friend. In some cases where 
purely religious questions give him little trou- 
ble, the prospect of an overturn of his theo- 
logy causes him keen distress. The shallow 
observer advises him to forswear all theolo- 
gical speculation and rule theology out of the 
circle of his thought, sufficing his soul with 
simple religious observance. But it will not 
do. One man may heed the advice, but his 
fellow instinctively feels its false quality, and 
is dissatisfied to leave the ranges of his soul 
unexplored and unmapped, while science is 
reducing to order his knowledge of other 
spheres of activity. He instinctively believes 
this exploration to be a legitimate function of 
the human reason. His experience of other 
lines of investigation leads him further to 
believe that, for exploration here, he needs 
some guiding principle which shall render 
experience coherent, and to the test of which 
he may subject his hypotheses. It is just this 
principle, however, that is notably lacking; 
and the lack seems all the more pitiable inas- 
much as recent monistic tendencies in science 
give renewed force to the demand that such 
high matters as sin, righteousness, and char- 



50 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

acter be treated, not as mere names or con- 
cepts, but as realities. 1 

In illustration of this lack of system in the 
theological thinking of Christian people to- 
day, one need only interrogate the men or 
women of somewhat more than average intel- 
ligence who comprise the bulk of the mem- 
bership of our Christian churches. In talk- 
ing with a man of this company, intelligent 
and well acquainted as he generally is with 
the world, — all the better and more deeply 
acquainted often because his acquaintance is 
mellowed and sweetened by his benevolence, 
— one is still struck by the fact that he is a 
dualist, and somewhat restless and puzzled by 
reason of his dualism. Ormuzd and Ahriman 
are ever with him, bidding for his suffrage in 
life's intellectual as well as moral contests. 
While he believes that God is in His World, 
still there is antinomy between natural and 
supernatural. The world activities are not 
merely distinct from, they are opposed to, the 
divine activities. 

To take a concrete illustration, the so- 
called law of gravitation is, in his thought of 
it, quite divorced from the divine working, 

1 Cf. art. " Theology," in Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia. 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 51 

except as God may use it as He might use any- 
other device or instrument. The law itself 
may very likely seem to him to be a concrete 
entity, to which he ascribes certain personal 
attributes, making it in reality a kind of de- 
miurge. He continually speaks as though the 
law accounted for events, and as though hav- 
ing been referred to the law, there was no 
room, or at least no need, for any reference 
to God. As a believer he is bound to hold to 
God's supremacy over this and all laws, but 
the supremacy is that of a foreign dynasty 
over a conquered realm ; and it is manifest 
most clearly in what are supposed to be its 
interferences with the law's normal working. 
Between Nature and the Supernatural there 
seems to be a great gulf fixed. Everything 
that comes into the category of ordinary expe- 
rience he assigns to the realm of the natural; 
the supernatural lies, he would very likely 
say, beyond his personal experience. He 
believes in it, but bases his belief on hearsay 
evidence. His heart cries out for the super- 
natural as somewhere existent and somehow 
manifest, but it is existent in other times and 
manifest to other men ; not to him while 
in his present pilgrimage. He is prone to 



52 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

think of miracle as a breach in the natural 
order; and the thought of a breach in the 
natural order gives such a wrench to what 
he supposes to be his scientific habit of mind 
as to require all his faith to substantiate it. 
Indeed, if by common consent all belief in 
miracles should fall into abeyance, he would 
think his faith relieved of an incubus. 

This antinomy between his conception of 
natural and supernatural extends itself to the 
realms of the rational and spiritual. If he 
could find standing-room beside Whichcote 
when he wrote to Tuckney, " Sir, I oppose not 
rational to spiritual, for spiritual is most ra- 
tional," 1 it would be to look out upon a world 
of vastly broader horizon, and one far better 
fitted than his present world for the habita- 
tion of reasonable beings ; but in many cases 
such a possibility never presents itself to him. 

In his thought upon the Bible, the Chris- 
tian man of this type often regards the divine 
and human agencies in its composition as 
mutually exclusive, and, feeling instinctively 
the presence of the divine, his doctrine of 
Sacred Scripture is extremely inhospitable to 
the human ; while his neighbor, who is not 

1 Quoted by Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 20. 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 63 

quite willing to be counted a Christian, recog- 
nizing as instinctively the human element, 
and being possessed of the same dualistic 
philosophy, is equally inhospitable to the di- 
vine. Both very likely agree in their conten- 
tion that except the Bible be infallible, it 
cannot be inspired; if there prove to be a 
considerable legendary element in Genesis, it 
is therefore by so much unfitted for its sup- 
posed religious office ; and except the unity of 
the Isaiah prophecies and the exact historicity 
of Jonah be accepted, then Isaiah and Jonah 
can have no legitimate place in the canon. 

The same evil principle is always plaguing 
men as they attempt to frame for themselves 
a doctrine of God. Neither Unitarian nor 
Trinitarian has altogether escaped it. The 
former is very likely to find himself a Deist 
with a God who is a mere deus ex machina 
— a device to account for things ; or else a 
Pantheist, whose God is a pervasive and imper- 
sonal Presence not to be very carefully distin- 
guished from the World, or, if distinguished, 
only as the personification of rather mawkish 
sentiment. In neither case is there likely to 
be much spiritual comfort or much incitement 
to worship in such belief. The Trinitarian, on 



54 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the other hand, especially if he pride himself 
upon his orthodoxy, is in great danger of re- 
garding his Trinitarian formula as an attempt 
at definition — a course which lands him al- 
most inevitably in Tritheism. Every reference 
to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost which he 
makes seems like an attempt to emphasize his 
belief in their separateness ; and it is with 
all the pride of " credo quia impossibile " 
that he admits how oppugnant his faith is to 
reason. It is only fair to state, however, that 
he represents but a small fraction of the great 
body of Trinitarians. It is what Bushnell 
used to call the "mere logicker," the man, 
that is, who would confine his definition of 
the human reason to the faculty of ratio- 
cination, who in his fear of the Scylla of 
Unitarianism throws himself a willing victim 
into the Charybdis of Tritheism. 

The instinct of the plain man whose faith 
grows up out of his experience, as that expe- 
rience in turn springs out of the experience 
of the Christian Church, keeps him from any 
attempt to use the Trinitarian formula as a 
definition. It appeals to him as an attempt 
to express the Christian world's experience 
of the infinite wealth of Being in God. If 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 55 

pressed to define his position further, he will 
very likely say that his theory of it can be 
stated only in terms of the doctrine of a 
modal Trinity ; that is, he sees God as mani- 
festing Himself to men in three aspects or 
modes of revelation. 

He may be told that this Sabellianism of 
his is shallow and meagre ; and the authority 
of great names from the third century to 
the nineteenth can be adduced to give weight 
to the charge. If the Trinitarian thus ac- 
cused be a humble man, he will very likely 
plead guilty and admit that he has no thought 
of compassing all the truth in his partial 
attempt to give a reason for his faith ; but 
rather of indicating the direction in which the 
larger truth lies as it is divined by his vision 
of the lesser truth revealed. Yet he will be 
an exceptionally thoughtful and gracious man 
if he take this position. He is far more likely 
to find himself puzzled and distraught by 
the seeming antinomy between the wealth of 
spiritual experience that has always accom- 
panied the acceptance of the truth which the 
Trinitarian formula struggles to express, and 
the difficulty of the formula itself. He feels 
the need of some underlying interpretative 



56 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

principle which current theology quite fails to 
supply. 

This need is perhaps nowhere more defi- 
nitely emphasized than when the man of 
whom we have been speaking attempts to 
formulate his doctrine of the Kingdom of God. 
He sees before him the Christian Church as 
a visible institution ; or, as he may think 
himself forced to admit, he sees a multitude 
of churches bearing the Christian name, and 
almost all presenting many of the notes of 
a true Church. Yet the note of catholicity 
seems wanting — most sadly wanting, he 
sometimes thinks, in those very bodies where 
its possession is most stoutly affirmed. But 
(for we suppose him to be a man of generous 
temper) he may still discern some adumbra- 
tion of the City of God in the omnium gath- 
erum of all these sects. The mass seems so 
heterogeneous as to defy the skill and pa- 
tience even of the Divine Head of the Church 
Himself. Yet on a closer view it appears 
rather to be unorganized than disorganized. 
Many of the distinctions which separate the 
churches represent not only no fundamental 
differences, but no appreciable differences. 
Though now and then these distinctions are 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 57 

all the more pitiable and lamentable on that 
account, as in the case of two struggling 
Presbyterian sects in a small New England 
village, which were divided, according to 
waggish report, by the fact that one sang 
the Psalms of David, while the other used 
David's Psalms, yet it remains to be said 
that in a great number of cases these dis- 
tinctions are simply the notes of natural dis- 
tribution rather than of unnatural division. 
It is not to be expected and probably not to 
be desired that uniformity of Christian pur- 
pose should result in conformity of Christian 
method. Not all Christian worshipers are 
likely to agree upon a universal liturgy, from 
the very fact that not all men are so consti- 
tuted as to be genuinely edified by the same 
modes of worship. The appeal of the spiritual 
is made to one man most naturally and effec- 
tively through the avenue of his intellectual 
processes; to his neighbor through his emo- 
tional nature. While each should yield mere 
preference in such a matter to the demands 
of the common good, he is under no obliga- 
tion to incur permanent and utter sacrifice of 
this sort unless the common good demands it 
very clearly. Under normal conditions, these 



58 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

two men may well work and worship in sepa- 
rate organizations, distinct rather than dif- 
ferent, cooperating rather than conforming, 
members of one larger body rather than of 
rival bodies ; but it is evident that if this is 
to be, it must come about through some com- 
mon power dwelling in and animating both, 
and directing them as diverse agents in the 
performance of wisely distributed parts of one 
work. It is this Dynamic of Christian union 
and common endeavor that seems wanting to 
the vision of the average Christian man. He 
believes in it as existent, but as at present un- 
discerned or at least unrecognized. He looks 
to see it one day supply to the churches the 
notes of the Church. 

The same problem in a somewhat subtler 
aspect confronts him when he pushes his in- 
quiry into the relations of the Church and the 
world. Christ warned His disciples against 
worldliness in a way that clearly indicated His 
prophetic vision of a long-enduring antago- 
nism between His Kingdom and the realm 
of the prince of this world. It has been a 
habit of religious teachers in all generations 
to assign to the latter realm everything that 
did not bear the direct impress of the Cross. 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 59 

The dogma of total depravity gained such 
sway over the theologic mind at one stage of 
its development, that here again the clamor of 
the times thrust it into the XXXIX. Arti- 
cles, where the quam longissime of Article 
IX. still abides to confute such as deny the 
Calvinistic element in that famous instru- 
ment. The theory that the earth is the Devil's 
and the fullness thereof has been tacitly 
accepted as a corollary of the proposition of 
total depravity. Now the doctrine of total 
depravity simply overstates a great truth. 
The pity is that good men should have given 
such emphasis to the overstatement as to 
invalidate the statement in a multitude of 
puzzled minds. The average man cannot re- 
concile himself to the belief that the material 
realm of nature in any real sense shared in 
man's fall ; or that it is participant with him 
in God's displeasure at sin. Nor can he see 
how a generous deed can fail to meet God's 
approval, even in the case of a man who 
has not consciously and definitely heeded 
Christ's call into discipleship. His whole soul 
revolts at the old blasphemy which made even 
the honest prayers of the " unregenerate " to 
be sin unto them. 



60 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Yet all Christian experience goes to show 
that regeneration is a real episode in human 
life — a fundamental episode in Christian 
life, indeed. It is as unscientific to deny it 
or to treat it with indifference as it would be 
to deny or condemn the phenomena of physi- 
cal generation. But does it not discount the 
reality of regeneration as a definite and con- 
scious experience, to treat the " mere moral- 
ities " of a self-respecting and respectable 
man as though they found acceptable place 
in God's thought about him ? Are we not 
in danger, of confounding fundamental dis- 
tinctions when we speak of the goodness of 
the man who has had no experience which 
he recognizes as conversion ? Do we not go 
further along the same downward road when 
we permit amusements which are not only 
capable of abuse, but are notoriously abused ? 
Even granting that a right use of them may 
conceivably be not only innocent but advan- 
tageous, is not the safer way to consign them 
to the category of the worlds employments, 
and so to the ban of God's displeasure? 
Thus, many good people of honest and un- 
selfish conviction have held and still hold ; and 
the " world," while vehemently opposing their 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 61 

contention, has been uneasily conscious that 
there were elements of truth in it. Both the 
Christian and the worldling, however, have 
felt at times a certain tendency to self-contra- 
diction in these theories of the spiritual life. 
The Christian has been troubled because his 
notion of the Kingdom of God did not prove 
more hospitable to some persons, acts, and 
principles of life which, while not confessedly 
Christian, still seemed to belong to the Chris- 
tian order of things. The worldling has been 
dissatisfied because all his exceptions to the 
meagreness and inadequacy of the Christian 
view of life, though some of these exceptions 
seem very well taken, prove utterly unable 
to overthrow the worth of the Christian prin- 
ciple, or to gainsay its persistent and authori- 
tative demand upon him for a yielding of his 
personal allegiance to it. 

The wonder will creep in whether there be 
not some power less exclusive in its choice of 
agencies, less mechanical in its methods of 
working, more pervasive in its influence and 
vastly more far-reaching in its results, than 
the Church has supposed the personal influ- 
ence of Jesus Christ to be. The Christian is 
sometimes forced to ask himself whether the 



62 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

whole Gospel has yet been proclaimed or not ; 
and whether there be not a Divine Dynamic 
at work outside the hearts of men who have 
definitely accepted Christ, and beyond the 
pale of the visible Church, which we must 
recognize and worship before we attain to our 
real heritage of revelation. 

Before closing this chapter, some reference 
should be made to the testimony which recent 
fiction and poetry bear to the place that 
theological topics hold in modern thought, 
and to the general incoherence of that thought 
itself. Whether a theological novel can per 
se be a good novel or not, it is beside my 
present purpose to discuss. Mrs. Humphry 
Ward has shown us that it may be an inter- 
esting, almost a fascinating novel, even 
though, as in " Robert Elsmere," the form 
of fiction be made to cover a considerable 
number of controversial sins. For in the 
Squire's library, access to which led ulti- 
mately to the overthrow of Robert Elsmere's 
faith, certain theological treatises were sup- 
posed to exist whose claims were so incontro- 
vertible that this not very profound scholar 
found his own positions no longer tenable. 
It is not for the present writer to contend 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 63 

that such treatises may not find justifiable 
existence upon the book-shelves of Mrs. 
Ward's creative imagination ; but he would 
fain inquire after a clearer glimpse of their 
contents before believing that a man of some- 
what tougher intellectual fibre than the late 
Mr. Elsmere could not have maintained his 
ground against them. Indeed, a fairly good 
case could be made out to show that in theo- 
logical discussion such a use of fiction comes 
at times pretty close to what Newman called 
a " poisoning of the wells " in controversy ; 
that is, the preferring such a charge against 
an opponent as the nature of the case pre- 
vents him from bringing to the test of evi- 
dence. Be that as it may, however, the vol- 
ume in question stands as a type of a vast 
number of works of fiction setting forth one 
phase or another of some question that in its 
implications, at least, is theological. 

No one can rise from the reading of such 
a powerful and gloomy book as the late Vic- 
tor Bydberg's " Last Athenian " without a 
new sense of the force of St. Paul's words, 
" having no hope and without God in the 
world." Thomas Hardy has almost ceased to 
be a novelist, so completely has he given him- 



64 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

self in his later and more painful books to 
the preacher's office. The closing paragraphs 
of " Tess of the D'Urbervilles " and " Jude 
the Obscure " might properly enough have 
found place in the sermon which James 
Thomson put into the mouth of the High 
Priest of Melancholia, preaching in the cathe- 
dral of " The City of Dreadful Night." 

" I find no hint throughout the universe 
Of good or ill, of blessings or of curse ; 

I find alone Necessity supreme ; 
With infinite mystery, abysmal, dark, 
Unlighted ever by the faintest spark 

For us, the flitting shadows of a dream." 

One cannot but wonder why a maker of 
men compact of bone and sinew, like the 
Mayor of Casterbridge, should be content to 
throw away his work, and turn to the fabri- 
cation of such flabby creatures as poor Jude. 
There was something not unworthy of Greek 
tragedy in the way in which Mr. Hardy's 
earlier and more masterful heroes were finally 
overmatched by Fate. But the later ones 
offer no real resistance to Fate because they 
are creatures of such loose fibre that Passion 
drives them whithersoever it will ; and the 
man who is already the sport of Passion is 
scarce worthy to be counted an antagonist 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 65 

by Fate. Mr. Hardy's God (if he have any) 
would appear to be one who, sitting in the 
heavens, doth laugh and have men in deri- 
sion. In his later novels his foregone and 
profoundly unsatisfactory conclusion seems 
to be, " There is a tide in the affairs of men 
which, taken any way you please, is bad." 
From Mr. Eden Philpotts, upon whose stur- 
dier shoulders Mr. Hardy's mantle seems like 
to fall, the problem of life in its ethical and 
spiritual phases obtains a much saner and 
more reasonable statement. Perhaps the ap- 
parent contradiction between the theology 
of mere sentiment, so prevalent to-day, and 
the theology of mere logic, so prevalent day 
before yesterday, has never been put more 
trenchantly than old Uncle Chirgwin put it 
to Joan after her betrayal by her artist-lover. 
" 'T is like this : your man did take plain 
Nature for God, an' he did talk fulishness 
'bout finding Him in the scent o' flowers, the 
hum o' bees, an' sich like. Mayhap Nature 's 
a gude working God for a selfish man, but he 
edn' wan for a maid, as you knows by now. 
Then your f aither — his God do sit everlast- 
ingly alongside hell-mouth an' laugh an' girn 
to see all the world a walkin' in same as the 



66 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

beasts walked in the Ark. Theer 's another 
picksher of a God for 'e ; but mark this, gal, 
they be lying prophets — lying prophets both ! 
You 've tried the wan and found it left your 
heart hollow like, and you Ve tried t' other 
an' found that left it no better filled ; now 
try Christ, will 'e? Just try. Doan't keep 
Him as is alius busy, a waitin' your whims 
no more. Try Christ, Joan dearie, an' you'll 
feel what you 've never felt yet. I know, as 
put my 'and in His when 't was as young as 
yourn. An' He holds it yet now 't is shriveled 
an' crooked wi' rheumatics. He holds it. Iss, 
He do." 1 

It is a picturesque setting forth of the in- 
expugnable hope of the human heart of a 
time when mercy and truth shall meet to- 
gether ; when righteousness and peace shall 
kiss each other. It is at the same time an 
indictment of the partial nature of every 
theology which emphasizes mercy as though 
it stood in no vital relation to truth ; or 
righteousness as though it could be righteous 
and not issue in peace. A very good case 
might thus be made out for the permanence 
of theology's interest for men, from an ex- 

1 Lying Prophets y bk. ii. c. xi. 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 67 

amination of the novels of the last five and 
twenty years. Should the inquiry be pro- 
secuted into the realm of poetry, the argu- 
ment would become a fortiori. Nowhere is 
the dictum of Horace Bushnell, " low grades 
of being want low objects ; but the want of 
man is God/' better illustrated. While at 
the same time abundant proof is given of 
the lack of coherence with which the want is 
expressed. 

Tennyson's somewhat hackneyed and not 
very satisfying "infant crying in the night 
. . . and with no language but a cry/' still wails 
on in many different keys, but with no least 
diminution of breath. It was almost funny to 
hear so grave and respectable an historian as 
the late Mr. Lecky sighing in rather labored 
verse, — 

" How hard to die, how blessed to be dead," 

especially in view of the fact that he gave us 
no least reason to suppose that it is blessed to 
be dead. Mr. Swinburne has got beyond all 
this, and proclaims 

" We have drunken of Lethe at last, we have eaten of 
Lotus ; 
What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die ? 



68 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread 
that smote us, 
Good-night and good-bye." 

Yet it does hurt, in spite of Mr. Swin- 
burne's eloquent disclaimer, as witness Mr. 
G. A. Greene : — 

" They have taken away my Lord ; 

They have shattered the one great Hope, 

They have left us alone to cope 
With our terrible selves : 
The Strength of immortal love ; 

The Comfort of millions that weep ; 

Prayer and the Cross we adored — 
All is lost ! there is no one above ; 

We are left like the beasts that creep — 

They have taken away my Lord." 

Mr. Austin Dobson's " Prayer of the 
Swine to Circe " illustrates — all the better, 
perhaps, because he does not proclaim his 
graceful verse to be an illustration — what 
Dr. van Dyke has termed the " cureless mel- 
ancholy of disillusion." 

" If swine we be — if we indeed be swine, 

Daughter of Perse* , make us swine indeed, 
Well pleased on litter-straw to lie supine, 

Well pleased on mast and acorn-shales to feed, 
Stirred by all instincts of the bestial breed ; 

But O Unmerciful ! O Pitiless ! 
Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed ! — 

To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress 
And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness." 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 69 

It is this prayer which Mr. Henley set him- 
self to answer in his perverse Rondeau be- 
ginning, — 

" Let us be druiik, and for a while forget, 
Forget, and ceasing even from regret, 
Live without reason and in spite of rhyme." 

But it will not do. The apparently diverse 
testimony of the poets of the major and the 
minor key alike tends toward one conclusion. 
They echo the unforgettable words of St. Au- 
gustine, " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and 
our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee." 
In the wilderness of modern verse which im- 
plies this we come now and then upon an 
almost startlingly explicit statement of it ; as, 
for instance, in Francis Thompson's lines : — 

" I fled Him down the nights and down the days ; 
I fled Him down the arches of the years ; 
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways 

Of my own mind ; and in the midst of tears 
I hid from Him, and under running laughter. 
Up vistaed hopes I sped ; 
And shot precipitated 
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, 
From those strong feet that followed, followed after, 
But with unhurrying chase, 
And unperturbed pace, 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 

They beat — and a Voice beat 
More instant than the Feet — 
' All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.' " 



70 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

In somewhat more conventional terms one 
of the most eminent disciples of Darwin con- 
cludes a sonnet written when he saw no hope 
that any true and genuine faith would ever 
come back to him : — 

" I ask not for thy Love; nor e'en so much 
As for a hope on Thy dear breast to lie ; 

But be Thou still iny Shepherd — still with such 
Compassion as may melt to such a cry ; 

That so I hear Thy feet, and feel Thy touch, 
And dimly see Thy face ere yet I die." 

Any study of the poetry of our time lends 
new strength to the conviction that the great 
poet is always a man of faith. It may not be 
perfectly coherent faith, exactly ordered and 
arranged in easily distinguished categories. 
But it is a faith wherein some vital principle 
resides. The poet looks out upon a world and 
in upon a heart where confusion is evident 
enough ; but it is the confusion of abundant 
material awaiting the builder, not the confu- 
sion of the wasted city ready for the sower 
of salt. The poet who would sing for some 
later age as well as for his own must tell of 
the realms of experience yet awaiting human 
exploration, and supply some guidance to the 
explorer. A map, the latter does not ask for. 
What he does ask, and has a right to expect 



POPULAR THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT 71 

to find, is some truth which shall enable him 
to keep his bearings, and always orientate 
himself correctly. 

One great poet of to-day in attempting to 
judge the World-maker by the world has 
asked : — 

" Is there strength there ? — enough : intelligence ? 
Ample : but goodness in a like degree ? 
Not to the human eye in the present state, 
An isocele deficient in the base." 1 

Browning's questions are not to be an- 
swered lightly for the reason that they are 
soberly, bravely, and expectantly asked. But 
the line along which the answer is to be dis- 
covered is suggested by Tennyson's exhor- 
tation : — 

" Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith ! 
She reels not in the storm of warring words, 
She brightens at the clash of ' Yes ' and ' No/ 
She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, 
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night, 
She spies the Summer thro' the winter bud, 
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 
She hears the lark within the songless egg, 
She finds the fountain where they wailed, Mirage ! " 

Note. For a fuller discussion of this theme the author 
ventures to refer to his essay on " The Religious Significance 
of Recent English Verse," in Biblioiheca Sacra, April, 1898. 

1 Browning, The Ring and the Book — The Pope. 



IV 

THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 

In the last chapter we discussed the confu- 
sion which has attended the attempt among 
the masses of men to interpret the universe 
through the idea of God. To speak more 
exactly, it has been an attempt to give mean- 
ing and congruity to life in face of the prob- 
lems which experience forces upon it — for 
the abstract notion of the universe rarely 
oppresses or particularly concerns the average 
man. We turn now to a consideration of the 
uncertainty which hampers multitudes in their 
endeavor to regulate conduct through this 
same idea. Here we enter the realm of re- 
ligion as distinguished from theology. It is 
useless to claim that the question is remote 
and out of relation to life's practical con- 
cerns. In a real sense it is life's most practical 
concern. Whether Matthew Arnold's conten- 
tion that conduct comprises three fourths of 
life — one of those unsupported claims which 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 73 

add a pseudo-scientific authority to the genu- 
ine literary charm of his writing — be de- 
fensible or not, it remains true that nothing 
can concern life more intimately than the 
ideas which regulate conduct, and give to it 
direction, tone, and purpose. This regulation 
is religion's office. It was never more clearly 
recognized to be religion's office than to-day. 
One of the secrets of the fretfulness or sad- 
ness which characterizes so much of the fiction 
and poetry of the last century lies in a discern- 
ment of the confusion into which religious 
thought has fallen. 

Men are everywhere talking about the age of 
doubt in religion, and trying to make out that 
it is bringing in an age of carelessness in con- 
duct. They do not have to go far afield for 
examples which seem to illustrate their claim. 
Whether it be possible to substantiate their 
claim or not is altogether another question ; 
for the doubt, sometimes regretful and some- 
times truculent, which has unquestionably 
characterized the religious thought of recent 
years is susceptible of two widely different in- 
terpretations. Doubt may be regarded as a sign 
„of an approaching divorce between conduct 
w and the religious idea, or as a sign of a new 



74 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

realization of the need of natural relations 
between the two. The history of religion 
lends countenance to this latter view ; for 
religion has developed in proportion as it has 
felt the necessity of this relation. It has 
become more spiritual, and so more deeply 
influential, as it has sought persistently for 
a rational faith, and insisted at the same time 
upon faith's vital inter-relations with con- 
duct. This endeavor has always been ham- 
pered, to be sure, by the ineradicable tendency 
of conduct to become formal, building a roof of 
observance over its own head, as it were, and 
dwelling beneath it, out of reach of faith's 
vitalizing; influences. When conduct has thus 
degenerated into observance, it ceases to be 
conduct in the deeper and more vital sense ; 
for conduct is naturally plastic in the hands 
of will; observance is obdurate. The abso- 
lute refusal to be content with life's offering 
of observance upon the altar of faith, when 
faith asked for its conduct, has ever been the 
note of the prophet; while the tendency 
toward such content has in all ages been the 
great temptation of the priest. Judaism and 
Christianity have proved no exception to the 
rule that all religion tends to harden into for- 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 75 

mality on the one hand, or to etherealize into 
mysticism on the other. Each has, however, 
produced a school of prophets who refused to 
let Jew or Christian rest in either form or 
dream. The most clairvoyant among the dis- 
ciples of both dispensations have insisted 
upon this vital relation of faith to conduct. 
They were not satisfied that faith should issue 
in regulative rules or maxims, and that these 
should govern conduct. It was needful that 
life in its daily acts and relations should be 
inspired and illumined by faith. 

So Isaiah, with his " Come now, and let us 
reason together, saith the Lord," was bent 
upon making and keeping religion real. He 
sought to bring the reality of sin into saving 
touch with the reality of grace, and to order 
conduct in the light of the resultant expe- 
rience. The tragedy of Hosea's shattered fam- 
ily life was but a picture of God's patient 
love of Israel, upon which Israel poured the 
despite of unfaithful conduct. The burden of 
the anonymous Malachi was that men should 
believe in God enough to pay Him formal 
reverence, and yet despise Him so much as 
to permit the form to degenerate into a 
practical mockery. This prophetic influence, 



76 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

which never was altogether lacking in Is- 
rael, kept the spark of genuine faith aglow, 
despite all that formalism could do to smother 
it. There was enough good spiritual soil in 
Judaism to make it possible for the mus- 
tard seed of a new religion to take root and 
grow. 

Nevertheless, the great enemy with which the 
new truth was forced to struggle was still the 
old tendency to regard religion as a matter of 
observance rather than as a source of life and 
a regulator of conduct. The religious men 
who surrounded Jesus were thrown into con- 
fusion — honest confusion, no doubt, in many 
cases — by the extraordinary interpretations 
whereby He seemed to transform the old 
Law. Their religious life had been a thing 
which submitted itself to metes, bounds, and 
well-defined ordinances. His did not. The 
Sabbath of the Scribes, with its limitations 
and prohibitions, was a matter that could be 
defined. His Sabbath, made for the use of 
man, and upon which it was lawful to do 
good, seemed vague, indefinable, and liable 
to revolutionary abuse. Their Law, with its 
eye for an eye, and its fine-wrought distinc- 
tions concerning murder, adultery, and the 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 77 

honor due to parents, though it might be 
intricate, at least aimed to be exact. His Law 
of Love, with its emphasis upon the attitude 
of the heart toward God and fellow man, 
threw Pharisaic exactness to the winds. It 
was doubtless criticised upon the ground that 
it was antinomian and liable to miserable 
misuse in the sphere of conduct. In point of 
fact it was adapted and destined to regulate 
conduct as no rule of observance could do. 

But the world has been slow to perceive 
this. The early Church almost split upon 
some of the questions which grew out of it. 
The New Testament word for religion was 
Opr)o-K€La, and its primary significance had 
to do with external observance and worship. 
St. James uses it with a fine insight into the 
change wrought by the Gospel, making it 
perfectly plain to his readers that it can never 
become a Christian word except as its spiritual 
content be discerned, and religion, ceasing to 
be a thing of rules, maxims, and observances, 
become the inspirer and regulator of conduct 
through the heart. 1 The tides of religious life 
that have ebbed and flowed through the his- 

1 See Fairbairn, Christ in the Centuries, pp. 171, 172, for a 
discussion of Op-rjo-iceia. 



78 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tory of the Church serve to illustrate and 
substantiate this claim. The great reformers 
have been the men who touched the springs 
of faith rather than those who laid down 
rules of conduct. Kegulation has always 
proved untrustworthy when imposed from 
without. It has been vital and therefore gen- 
uinely effective only when it has resulted 
from inspiration within. The preaching that 
has seemed to be primarily ethical has often 
proved less effectively ethical than the preach- 
ing that has been primarily spiritual. Indeed, 
a case might be made out for the claim that 
merely doctrinal preaching has proved as ethi- 
cally effective as any that directed attention 
immediately to conduct. The great preachers 
of the English Church in the eighteenth cen- 
tury were admirable expounders of the worth 
of well-doing. The famous Deist, who con- 
fessed that he sent his servants to church 
that they might learn not to cut his throat, 
was not without some insight into human na- 
ture and the influence of ethical teaching on 
it. Yet, after all is said, the real hope for bet- 
ter life lay quite as much in the field-preach- 
ing of the Methodists as in the excellent dull- 
ness of the pulpit homilies. The Evangelical 



THE RELIGLON OF THE PEOPLE 79 

movement was largely instrumental in a re- 
formation of conduct because it made sin and 
need felt. The contemporary ethical preach- 
ing was directed toward making virtue seem 
desirable to men who were already very well 
content with themselves. The Evangelicals 
made men profoundly discontented with them- 
selves ; and it is a commonplace of experi- 
ence that the " must " of a conscious need is 
always more fertile in expedients and more 
persistently powerful as a motive than the 
" may " of mere comfortable opportunity. 

The last five and twenty years of the nine- 
teenth century witnessed a considerable re- 
vival of ethical teaching and preaching. This 
was needed and proved helpful. But those 
who thought they saw in it the ultimate 
form which religion was to assume are likely 
to find themselves mistaken. The Church is 
still something more than a philanthropic 
club, and the art of the preacher will not 
always be content to give first place to the 
well-wrought homily. The frequent resort to 
the homily on the part of preachers and a 
certain demand for it on the part of the 
people are quite as significant of a general 
religious fogginess as of an awakening to the 



80 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

need of better morals. The dissertation upon 
conduct is always the easy thing. It makes 
but moderate demands upon either preacher 
or congregation. It seems to comport well 
with the decencies of worship and religious 
observance. It rarely arouses feeling to an 
undue pitch ; it is never accompanied by hys- 
teria ; and it issues in something immediate 
— something that the eye can see and the 
hand handle. There is less sowing of winter 
wheat, which must lie dormant for a season 
and pass through strange transformation on 
its way to fruition, than in the older preach- 
ing ; and it is the thing which can still be 
done while both preacher and hearer, writer 
and reader, are in grave doubt as to whether 
there be any sound foundation of spiritual 
principle under their feet or not. This sort of 
preaching has its gastronomic counterpart in 
those predigested or partly cooked foods whose 
virtues every newspaper exploits, quite uncon- 
scious that it arraigns at the same time the 
common incapacity of our kitchens and our 
stomachs. It is of course a fortunate thing 
that men persist in good conduct even when 
in serious doubt as to the doctrine which 
underlies it. This persistence, however, is not 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 81 

likely to be indefinitely prolonged. The con- 
duct degenerates rapidly into mere observ- 
ance, unless the doctrine be articulate and 
comprehensible. 

One need not have a very wide acquaint- 
ance, or be gifted with unusual powers of 
observation, to discover that this is just the 
case into which much of the doctrine that 
men have been in the habit of regarding as 
most vitally related to conduct has fallen. 
The number of those who categorically deny 
the doctrines known as Christian is small. 
But those who question their validity, cavil 
at their basis in fact, and wonder at their 
authority in the realm of action, are a mul- 
titude ; whether they are increasing or not, it 
is beside our present purpose to inquire. 

Our purpose leads us rather to note some 
of the sources of this confusion. It is safe 
to leave out of account the factitious doubt 
which is but an expression of the unruliness 
of human passion and its restiveness under 
all restraint of principle. The most evidently 
valid principle of conduct will find occasional 
contemners so long as there remains in man 
a remnant of that childish unreason which 
leads us to cry out upon what arraigns us at 



82 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the bar of our unwilling judgment. There 
is a demoniac element in us all which would 
raise its strident " What have we to do with 
thee ? " against the presence of transcendent 
worth, were it not muzzled by saner powers. 
With this we are not dealing; but rather 
with those questionings, sometimes welcomed 
by human frailty and sometimes contended 
with as the heralds of despair, which lead 
men to doubt the validity of Christianity as 
a Way of Life. 

In point of fact, such questionings were 
to be expected with the decline of the prin- 
ciple of authority. The genius of Western 
Christendom for centuries occupied itself 
with system-building. It built a Church after 
the model of the Eoman Empire, and con- 
structed a system of religious doctrine as 
elaborate and well defined as its system of 
ecclesiastical government. In both these he- 
mispheres of its life " authority " was a great 
word ; sometimes all the greater because, 
like the sacred Name of Hebrew Scripture, 
it was rarely uttered. No man objected to 
authority. The ipse dixit of the Council or 
the Bishop in matters ecclesiastic was recog- 
nized to be the normal as well as ultimate 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 83 

solution of all vexatious questions. The same 
general method obtained with reference to 
questions in philosophy or natural science. 
A great name was the most telling argument 
that could be adduced to substantiate a po- 
sition. This reverence for authority grew 
old slowly. Its strength, even when threat- 
ened by age, enjoyed more than one period 
of recrudescence. The New Learning did not 
immediately undermine it, but merely sup- 
plied new intellectual pursuits for those whose 
restless minds might have threatened the prin- 
ciple of authority. The discovery of America 
invalidated the authority of old geographers ; 
but it also opened new fields of material and 
spiritual adventure. Even the Protestant Re- 
formation was less a rebellion against the prin- 
ciple of authority than an effectual protest 
against a particular source of authority. It 
was a revolution which succeeded in divid- 
ing the existing system, rather than in over- 
throwing it. Two systems resulted. The Pope 
and the ecclesiasticism which he represented 
remained at the head of one. In the other, 
the allegiance which had been the Pope's 
was transferred to the Book. The notion of 
authority vested in an earthly fountain-head 



84 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and exercised under a well-defined system 
was still regnant. It would be unjust to 
deny the deep insight of the great reform- 
ers and their perception of the power of a 
Divine Spirit ever interpreting the truth to 
men in terms of experience. Their visions of 
this truth were, however, as fleeting as they 
were inspiring, and the great body of their dis- 
ciples settled back into dependence upon an 
earthly authority, which they connected with 
a heavenly source by a doctrine of inspira- 
tion made to order. There was, to be sure, a 
right of private judgment, but it was little 
more than a right of interpretation. Its metes 
and bounds were definite and often narrow. 

To say all this is in no sense to belittle 
the Reformation's place in the intellectual 
and spiritual history of Christendom. It was 
an enormous step in the direction of free- 
dom. The forces resident in it were destined 
to lead the world farther than the Reform- 
ers dreamed, though it took generations for 
the real implications of the principles which 
they established to appear. Indeed, they are 
but dimly discerned yet by the masses of 
men. Protestants have indignantly repelled 
the accusation of Catholics that the wild out- 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 85 

breaks of fanaticism on the part of certain 
of the earlier Anabaptists and Quakers were 
legitimate fruits of the Reformation. Yet 
this assertion has enough truth to entitle it 
to respectful consideration. The real condem- 
nation which it carries, however, belongs to 
the Catholic in quite as large measure as it 
can to the Protestant regime. Such fanati- 
cism was the reaction of untrained and sternly 
repressed minds, after sudden release. It 
represented a license that was one day to 
become liberty, and a despite of supreme 
authority that through alternate experiences 
of rebellion and servitude must one day find 
the golden mean of friendship. During the 
last century we have seen this change passing 
upon the notion of authority in every depart- 
ment of thought. The principles underlying 
the art of education have experienced radical 
transformation. Authorities have arisen and 
fallen until, at the new century's beginning, 
all authority has seemed to be at discount, 
and pedagogy has become the toy of an em- 
pirical psychology. 

Ever since the French Revolution, the source 
of authority in government has been the play- 
thing of demagogues and the puzzle of philoso- 



86 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

pliers. The anarchist has categorically denied 
its existence outside the impulse of his own 
breast. The rare and occasional confessed 
aristocrat has as categorically asserted author- 
ity's derivation from some family or little 
group of families in each state, whose ances- 
tors won their right to its exercise on the 
field or in the cabinet. The majority of men 
have been content meanwhile simply to doubt 
the principle of authority in government, re- 
cognizing any de facto master who might have 
wisdom enough to use his power endurably. 
In the realm of natural science it has been 
the student's boast that the day of the great- 
est man's ascendency is briefer than ever be- 
fore. The newspapers and popular lecturers 
still remind us from time to time of the pro- 
fessor who told his assistant to remove from 
the library shelves every volume dealing with 
his special branch of science which was more 
than ten years old, and to consign it to the 
oblivion of the cellar; inasmuch as nothing 
of a decade's standing was worth reading 
by a progressive man. The tendency of the 
last two generations has been to arraign 
systems, to discount authority, to hold tradi- 
tion in worst possible repute, and to exalt the 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 87 

empiric and the opportunist. Let it be dis- 
tinctly understood that I am not decrying or 
bemoaning this tendency. It is a fact of ex- 
perience to be recognized and assigned to its 
place in the history of human progress. I 
incline to emphasize it here, because it sug- 
gests the further fact that the doubt which 
these generations have cast upon systems of 
Christian thought, and the uncertainty with 
which they have regarded the relation of 
Christianity to the conduct of life, have their 
counterparts in other spheres of human ex- 
perience. 

When we come to inquire into the more 
immediate causes of this doubt, they prove to 
be so numerous and so closely intermingled 
as to make specification difficult. It is scarcely 
to be questioned, however, that the growth of 
a scientific Biblical criticism has been a potent 
factor in developing present conditions. It 
was a shock to the popular estimate of the 
Bible to treat the Scriptures as a literature 
instead of a sacrosanct volume. Men now 
living no doubt remember the start of half- 
pained surprise with which the orthodox 
world greeted Stanley's reference to Abra- 
ham as a "sheik." To apply the terms of 



88 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

common Eastern life to him seemed like a be- 
littling of his divine vocation. But the world 
was to see greater things than these. It was 
to see a searching inquiry instituted into the 
extent and the worth of the Christian tradi- 
tion which hedged the sacred documents of 
the new dispensation almost as closely as the 
traditions of the Jewish fathers had ever 
hedged the Law. Under such inquisition it 
was to see considerable portions of this tra- 
dition break down. It was called upon to 
formulate a new doctrine of Sacred Scripture. 
This, to the man who had been used to treat 
his Bible as an arsenal of proof texts, was 
hard and painful work. He was generally in- 
clined to exaggerate the negative implications 
of the demand, and, perhaps, to refuse to 
honor it because it seemed to be so largely 
negative. Nor should we forget how vehe- 
mently the non-Christian, to whose unbelief 
the traditional view of the Bible was a rebuke 
and an offense, seconded the protest of his 
ultra-orthodox brother. Both argued from 
the premiss that if the tradition went, all 
must go. Either the Bible must be sacrosanct, 
or it must be profane. The man who touched 
the Isaiah authorship touched the foundations 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 89 

of belief; and if a flesh-and-blood prophet 
were not swallowed by a literal fish, then must 
our faith be vain. 

It is idle to argue that this premiss is 
absurd. That may be, but it is to be remem- 
bered that where feeling is involved, an 
absurd premiss will often serve the purposes 
of a very telling argument. An absurd pre- 
miss has once and again proved to be a stick 
abundantly good enough to beat a so-called 
" higher critic " with. A little time is needed 
for the absurdity of premisses to make itself 
evident to the man of the street. Meanwhile 
the beating may go merrily on, with his ap- 
proval rather than otherwise, since it pro- 
mises to silence a discordant voice and cast 
out a fermenting leaven. Yet the voice per- 
sists. The leaven works. The man of the 
street perceives at last that what he be- 
holds is something more than a squabble. It 
is revolution ; and his imagination, true to 
its nature, proceeds to an exaggerated esti- 
mate of the probable consequences. He for- 
gets that as revolution never changes the 
genius of a people, so attack upon the forms 
of religious conviction never eradicates the 
conviction itself. Doubt and consequent 



90 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

confusion may be introduced for a time. The 
validity of great principles may temporarily be 
called in question ; but the principles them- 
selves will persist in spite of all attacks upon 
the forms in which they are commonly ex- 
pressed. 

Another fruitful source of confusion to the 
religious thought of multitudes of people has 
been the attempt to popularize the study of 
comparative religion. It may be said that the 
study of so abstruse a science can never be 
popularized ; and in a sense this is true. But 
it is also true that the results of this study are 
sure to filter down into the literature and 
thought of the unlearned, either in the form 
of rash hypothesis or of well-substantiated 
conclusion. In whichever form they come, 
they are likely to bring temporary confusion 
with them. The average Christian thinks of 
his religion as he thinks of his Bible, as 
original in an exclusive sense. The discovery 
of a parallel to any feature of either tends 
at first to diminish its authority in his eyes. 
The fact that Christianity comprehends the 
theanthropic elements which characterize the 
Aryan religions with the theocratic elements 
which mark the Semitic religions is more 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 91 

than a beautiful coincidence. It is signifi- 
cant of Christianity's divine commission ac- 
cording to the law of an endless life ; it 
prefigures its universal fitness to the needs of 
men. This significance does not, however, he 
upon the surface. The first thought of the 
man to whom this message of the scholar is 
new may very well be that Christianity must 
be less of a divine revelation than he has 
supposed, since suggestions and premonitions 
of its great doctrines have come to men of 
other and prior faiths. It is disagreeable news 
to him that there should be an Assyrian 
tradition of creation and of deluge with which 
every fair-minded scholar must consent to 
compare Genesis. The thought of ethnic trin- 
ities comes perilously close to blasphemy. 
The more devout he is, the more he feels the 
obligation to explain away all adumbrations 
of the great truth of incarnation previous to 
its exemplification in Christ, and the less is 
his willingness to admit that any word to 
which Christ gave universal significance and 
currency had ever found previous utterance 
on the lips of some outstanding man reared 
in an ethnic faith. 

Yet how if he be forced finally to admit 



92 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

these things ? Then will come the pains 
which accompany growth into a larger con- 
ception of the nature o£ Christianity and 
the method of revelation. Often enough this 
growth will at first seem hostile to develop- 
ment. The man's grip upon his faith as a 
guide in matters of conduct will frequently 
suffer in some degree during the process. 
Under the strabismic influence of it, he may 
conceivably join the short-sighted crew who 
are ever arguing that if Christianity be not 
absolutely unique, it cannot be authoritative ; 
that if it prove to have some things in com- 
mon with the ethnic religions, then it can be 
no better than they ; and that there is every 
reason for supposing that each race's faith is 
the one best fitted to its need. The non se- 
quitur of such reasoning is egregious enough ; 
but it suits the purposes of some who would 
diminish the troublesome claims of Chris- 
tianity upon their personal allegiance; of 
others who desire for any reason whatsoever 
to antagonize modern scholarship ; nor is the 
fallacy always discerned by the honest souls 
to whom the faith of the fathers is ineffably 
dear, who at the same time see that the dis- 
coveries of modern scholarship cannot be 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 93 

ignored, and who are heart-sick at the appar- 
ent antinomy between the new science and 
the old system. It is hard for them to per- 
ceive how a truth imperfectly apprehended 
by man's reason can be the truth ; or how 
error can under any condition find place in 
the process of a divine revelation. They are 
impatient of the method of growth and dis- 
dainful of God's habit of using imperfect 
instruments. 

If space sufficed, it might be shown how 
closely related all this doubt is to a dubious 
apprehension of the fact of personality — a 
tendency to discount the worth of the per- 
son, and to resort to mechanical contrivance 
for explanation of physical, mental, and moral 
phenomena. It is a mistake to assume that 
this lack of faith in the person is a result of 
so-called scientific "materialism." Personal- 
ity is always at discount when men pin their 
faith to a system, whether the system bear the 
name of Calvin, or Comte, or Spencer. Dur- 
ing the last fifty years it has been revealed to 
philosophers that their systems were partial. 
Some of the more discerning among them 
have perceived that their systems, from the 
very nature of the case, must continue to be 



94 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

partial. The essence of life and the springs 
of power are not in them. The former is too 
subtle, the latter too ebullient, to be confined 
in any cage of mere dialectic. With this con- 
viction has naturally come a feeling of uncer- 
tainty and doubt, since serious men do not 
transfer their allegiance easily. This doubt 
has been most painful when it has hampered 
religious faith and teaching. It has seemed 
to be most hostile to life when it has threat- 
ened to divorce religion and morals. But 
gradually we have been coming to see that if 
allegiance must be withdrawn from systems, 
it is only that it may be transferred to that 
which gave the systems all the life they ever 
had and all the promise of continuance they 
could ever boast. The new object is a Power. 
I say "Power" rather than "Person," not 
because the latter designation is excluded, 
but because it represents the goal which spir- 
itual experience attains as a reward of service. 
One may, without fear of contradiction, affirm 
that every man in the sphere of conduct has 
experience of the Dynamic of Christianity ; 
though of course it would be absurd to claim 
that he always connects the source of his ex- 
perience with a system of Christian thought 



THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 95 

or belief. Indeed, he may never realize in this 
present life the personal attributes of the 
Power which touches and influences him. 
The realization of this is for him the fulfi.11- 
ment of the Beatific Vision. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 

The student of the history of Christendom 
finds few sadder chapters than those which tell 
the story of the struggle of the poor for an 
amelioration of their lot. There is a pathos 
quite free from any taint of sentimentality 
about their short and simple annals. The very 
brevity and simplicity with which history ushers 
in and dismisses the incidents of a peasant up- 
rising bespeak the dumbness of the multitude 
whose desperation inaugurated it and whose 
hopes were built upon it. In a. d. 287 the 
Bagauds — peasants of Gaul — managed by 
some herculean effort after organization to be- 
siege Autun for seven months and finally to 
sack it. The Emperor Maximian succeeded at 
last in breaking the power of the insurrection ; 
but it was long before the old quiet of despair- 
ing poverty was restored ; and the misery of 
the Gallic coloni and dedititii which caused 
the outbreak is dumb to this day so far as any 
really articulate utterance of itself goes. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 97 

The Jacquerie of 1358, if not as silent, is 
still as incoherent. It has had, to be sure, a so- 
called chronicler in Froissart. But Froissart is 
in the highest degree uncritical. By his lack 
of sympathy with the people, as well as by his 
ignorance, he was unfitted to tell the story of 
their hopeless fight for betterment of hard con- 
ditions ; and since what the world thinks that 
it knows is founded largely upon Froissart, the 
commonly received history belongs to the vast 
category of " knowledge which is not so." 
The true story is sorry enough. The outbreak 
took place on the 21st of May, and was over 
by the 9th of June. Vengeance began at once, 
and continued through August. The whole 
affair was as bad and brutal as such outbreaks 
always are, but the letters of amnesty of the 
Regent of France issued on the 10th of August 
have been preserved, and show pretty con- 
clusively the scope and range which Froissart 
gave to a naturally active imagination. 

So we have but the scantiest chronicle of 
Wat Tyler's insurrection in 1381 and Jack 
Cade's — which seems to have been mainly 
political rather than economic and religious 
— in 1450. 

There are few chapters in the history of the 



98 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

period immediately preceding the Reforma- 
tion in Germany which the student of the 
life of the people would give more to hear 
authoritatively and minutely told than that 
which should set forth the story of the Bund- 
schuh Insurrection. It broke out in 1492, 
bearing upon its banner the " Bundschuh " 
or peasant's clog. The world-old panacea for 
such outbreaks — the sword — - was tried upon 
it, and it seemed to yield to treatment ; though 
the cobbler's banner was not taken. This had 
strange adventures on its journeyings through 
the Black Forest in Joss Fritz's bosom until 
it could be upreared again in 1514. Yet his- 
tory is almost silent concerning all that the 
banner stood for. The hopes and fears which 
it symbolized must be relegated to the limbo 
of unwritten epics. The sober historian has 
little hope of ever making them authoritatively 
articulate. 

The uprising of the Kurucks or Crusaders 
of Hungary in 1513 falls into the same cate- 
gory. We find the cause, or perhaps better, 
the excuse, of their organization in the advent 
of Cardinal Bacracz from Rome armed with a 
Papal Bull against infidels. There is a glimpse 
of the Transylvanian leader Dosza, under whom 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 99 

the peasants armed and attacked the nobles. 
We know that he was captured and put to 
death with torture ; but that is nearly all we 
know. The causes of the desperate unrest, as 
they arose out of the suffering of the poor, 
whose spirit was oppressed but not yet broken, 
can be but dimly discerned. There was no 
chronicler to tell the story from the peasant 
standpoint. 

The great revolt of the next decade is better 
understood. It was in one sense a recrudes- 
cence of the old agitation for a better standard 
of life that at the close of the preceding cen- 
tury had rallied the Dutch poor about banners 
bearing the single word " bread " or " cheese." 
In another, it was doubtless due to the new 
spirit of independence fostered by the Re- 
formation. With some plausibility Erasmus 
wrote to Luther, " You are now reaping what 
you have sown." Yet upon the whole, the 
movement was political and social rather than 
religious. It met the fate of its predeces- 
sors. The people had not yet found a voice, 
and the sword has ever been the great argu- 
ment wherewith to meet the truth spoken by 
an unready tongue. Luther tells us that in 
Franconia, 11,000 peasants were slain ; in 



LcfC. 



100 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Wiirtemberg, 6000 ; in Swabia, 10,000 ; while 
in Alsace, the Duke of Lorraine was said to 
have brought up the count to 20,000.* The 
comparative silence of history is an enforced 
one here, since dead men tell no tales. There 
was no social science in those days, inasmuch 
as he who stated and tried to demonstrate 
even a simple social theorem rarely lived to 
write his quod est demonstrandum. 

But with the French Revolution the army 
of the poor found a voice. Indeed, it may 
well be questioned whether the most notable 
result of that great social upheaval were not 
this fact, that the man who thought himself 
hardly used by society need never more be 
either dumb or inarticulate. As respects effu- 
sion of blood, the Terror sinks into insig- 
nificance beside the Peasants' Revolt of 1524, 
which cost twenty times as many lives. The 
one hundred thousand, however, were mostly 
dumb, while the five thousand whom the tum- 
bril carried to the guillotine could speak or had 
articulate friends, and those who sent them 
there could reply. The incidents of the Re- 
volution are of vast interest and moment in 
themselves considered, but the enormous vol- 

1 Cf. F. Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 101 

ume of the literature which relates and dis- 
cusses them has a deeper cause ; for, as the 
Reformation marked the close of the day 
when Authority could dictate what a man 
might think, so the Revolution closed the 
day when Authority could bid a man be 
dumb concerning what he thought. Since 
that time men have spoken out what they 
were wont to whisper in secret. Great store 
of nonsense has been talked in consequence, 
of course; but it has also followed that the 
world has grown more rapidly acquainted 
with the circumstances and the problems of 
its own life in the last hundred years than 
in the whole of the eighteen centuries pre- 
cedent to them. Especially have the poor 
found voice. Even the "submerged tenth/' 
though little given to literary or oratorical 
effort in its own behalf, has always, ere it 
went down, found some bystander to listen 
to its cry and report its plight. 

Hence has arisen the so-called Social Prob- 
lem. There is nothing new about it. Every 
seer in every age has discerned its existence. 
Moses voiced it to Pharaoh. Amos, groaning 
in spirit over the land hunger of his day, 
when the "poor were bought for silver and 



102 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the needy for a pair of shoes/' taught his 
generation that its only safety lay in recog- 
nizing and solving it. Jesus intimated its 
abiding character in his assurance that the 
poor were ever with us ; for while there is 
no element of real foretelling in this saying, 
it is significant of a universal human expe- 
rience. Langland in his " Piers Ploughman " 
has acquainted us with the misery of the Eng- 
lish peasant class in the fourteenth century ; 
and the contrast between his own gaunt discon- 
tent and the sleek complacency of Chaucer is 
a comment upon the social problems of their 
time quite as enlightening and suggestive as 
anything which either poet set down in black 
and white. 1 Yet these are mere occasional ut- 
terances of some outstanding prophet. They 
scarce represent the word of the poor man 
himself. That must still be inferred. 

With the approach of the Revolution period, 
however, some of the elemental factors of the 
problem began to appear more clearly. Arthur 
Young's " Journeys in France," published in 
1793-94, and Sir Frederick Eden's "State of 
the Poor," in 1797, gave pretty accurate and 
clear-eyed glimpses of real conditions. At the 

1 Cf . Green's Short History of English People, c. v. sec. v. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 103 

same time, through a multitude of new avenues, 
the voice of the poor began to reach the ears 
of the world. Kant's famous waking from his 
" dogmatic slumber " was no more real than the 
change that passed over the masses of those 
who had been hitherto subject to authority, 
and who were wont to regard their social 
status as fixed and permanent. The unnatural 
ebullience of revolution was bound to subside ; 
but as when a tidal wave wrecks a port, other 
and lesser waves were equally bound to recur. 
Equilibrium is as slow of reestablishment in 
society as in water. The minor revolutions of 
1830 and 1848 on the Continent, and the 
great constitutional changes — revolutionary 
in fact rather than name — of Parliamentary 
Keform and the abolition of the Corn Laws 
in England, as well as the vast increase of 
America in wealth, power, and ability to pro- 
vide opportunity for the poor man, have all 
had their influence upon social conditions. 
Each has been a factor in the restatement of 
the problem. 

It is worthy of note that with this new 
freedom of utterance which has come to the 
poor man, and with the increased attention 
which the world has been willing to accord 



104 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to his words, a change has crept over his own 
definition of his needs. Any one who reads the 
story of the organization of labor may well 
be struck with the fact that while the aims of 
the thoughtful wage-earner during the first 
half of the nineteenth century were largely 
political, they have become, or are rapidly 
becoming, economic. The fight for political 
rights has been won. The recognition of the 
poor man as a man, with all a freeman's rights, 
has been accorded. Now he is turning his 
attention to the organization of society, and 
inquiring after the new economic privileges, 
to the winning of which his political privi- 
leges may minister. 1 

Hence the present unrest. It seems to be 
more pervasive and more generally recognized 
than ever. The literature to which it gives 
rise covers our reading-tables. It is one of 
the stock topics of discussion in debating 
club, trades-union meeting, church convention, 
and newspaper editorial. It forms one of the 
most trusted weapons of the Opposition in 
politics. Upon the strength of it the reformer 

1 Cf . Fairbairn, Religion in History and Modern Life ; Influ- 
ence of the Intellectual Movement ; Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, 
The Standard of Life; Webb, History of Trades Unionism. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 105 

fulminates his philippics against the present 
order and his prophecies of judgment to 
come. The religious sectary appeals to it as 
a sure sign ■ of the approaching end of the 
present dispensation. The economic sectary 
calls upon a trembling public to observe that 
the times present numerous conditions which 
duplicate those that ushered in the Eeforma- 
tion of the sixteenth century and the French 
Kevolution of the eighteenth. Precisely as 
the medical quack makes gain of a nervous 
public by calling upon them through the 
advertising columns of the newspapers to note 
every irregularity of function, and to see in 
it symptoms of grave physical disorder, so a 
multitude of political and economic quacks 
parade their nostrums before a society that is 
ill at ease with itself, not very wise and judi- 
cial in diagnosing its own ailments, and a 
good deal disposed to try experiments upon 
its uneasy body. 

Yet while every one talks about this problem 
none appears to define it, for the excellent 
reason that it proves itself to be essentially 
indefinable. It transcends all our efforts to 
gather its known factors into a soluble equa- 
tion from which we may hope to derive its 



106 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

unknown. This may seem to be a rather fatu- 
ous and disappointing conclusion at which to 
arrive. It is not really so ; because this con- 
clusion is only a crude statement of the fact 
that the experience of society is an experience 
incident to its organic character. Society is an 
organism instead of a machine. It is a growing 
instead of a completed structure ; moreover, 
its growth is not the mechanical growth of a 
building whose walls are rising by virtue of 
what men bring to it from without, but it is 
the outworking of an immanent or resident 
Force, feeding upon such material as it can 
reach and assimilate. Hence the problem of 
society is as complex as the problem of life 
itself. This problem will never be solved in 
the sense that all its component questions will 
be answered, simply because each new genera- 
tion's experience will present new questions. 
The hope for society as for the individual lies 
in the discovery of a way of life, and in the 
development of a Power that shall guide and 
keep it in this way. A great deal that is said 
about the ailments of society is as amiable 
and well meant as the prayers of Kim's good 
Lama. It proceeds upon the hypothesis that 
society is bound to the Wheel of Things, and 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 107 

that its only hope lies in Nirvana. That is the 
note of a decadent social faith. The man of 
robuster and more wholesome fibre will main- 
tain that for society as for his individual life 
the Wheel of Things may be expected to lead 
to some goal worth attainment, if only the 
right path and an adequate force be at hand. 
There may be more or less jolting on the 
road, to be sure, but that is incident to all 
journeying. 

It is therefore a very refreshing sanity that 
Professor Peabody brings to the discussion of 
the " Social Question " when he admits that 
there is no social problem which can be differ- 
entiated from social problems. 1 Of social 
problems there is great store. Never before 
were so many people awake to their existence. 
Never before were so many people under deep 
conviction that something must be done to 
mend the social order. " The social questions 
occur simply because a very large number of 
people are trying in many different ways to 
do what is right.' ' 2 This very anxiety to do 
right, however, sometimes blinds our judgment 
as to accomplished progress and existing con- 

1 Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 335. 
a Id. p. 347. 



108 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ditions. The quack, to give a factitious im- 
portance to the need which his nostrum is to 
meet, proclaims that things were never so bad 
before ; that the gulf separating social classes 
was never so deep and wide ; that the rich 
are growing richer while the poor are daily 
sinking deeper into poverty's Slough of De- 
spond ; and that, if any one pretends to care 
for the poor man's soul, it is only that he may 
more conveniently exploit his body. 

To all this there is a plain historical answer to 
be made. It may not be true that social unrest 
to-day is less than it was at the beginning of 
last century ; of this I shall speak a little later. 
But it is undeniably true that last century 
ministered to the poor man's chance in the 
world more purposefully and generously than 
any of its predecessors. 

In the first place, the century was marked 
by the awakening of the conscience of Chris- 
tendom to social conditions and needs. Lord 
Shaftesbury, whose theological and political 
Toryism was noted in the Introduction, admi- 
rably exemplified this social renaissance. He 
said very little about a social problem > but 
he was keenly alive to social problems. It has 
grown to be the fashion to sneer at some of his 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 109 

methods and at many of his notions. Yet 
the world could ill have spared him. He really 
accomplished much, and he exemplified more. 
In an eminent degree he stood for the new 
sensitiveness of the social conscience. In a 
less degree he illustrated its enlightenment. 
Conservative though he was in politics and 
theology, he could not rest in his conserva- 
tism while men suffered ; neither could he rest 
in any mere attitude of protest. He origi- 
nated or identified himself with many diverse 
schemes of benevolence. Some of them were 
wise and some were foolish ; but there was 
usually oil enough in the lamps of the wise 
to make a very hopeful and enlightening 
glow after time and the hour had snuffed 
out the flickerings of the foolish. The secret 
of his success lay in the fact that he was 
always after something that should make the 
permanent lot of the man he helped more 
tolerable and his chance in life larger. With 
characteristic Tory obstinacy he wrought at 
one of the greatest tasks of the century — 
" a definition of man that should take in the 
downmost man." 1 

Toward a social life lived in the light of 
1 Nash, Genesis of the Social Conscience p. 263. 



110 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

such a definition conscience is still forcing 
the world. It is beside the mark to object 
that the world moves with very unwilling 
feet toward this goal. Conscience is often 
obeyed so unwillingly that the restiveness 
almost obscures the fact of obedience. None 
the less, it is ever becoming a more persistent 
and dangerous enemy to inhuman and unso- 
cial life. It was in response to the demands 
of conscience, for instance, that slavery was 
gradually abolished throughout Christendom, 
in spite of what seemed to be the assured 
impracticability of abolition when Granville 
Sharp began his agitation. So any one who 
will compare Eden's statistics of the income 
and expenditure of the average laborer's 
family in 1797 with those of the "Family 
Budgets " gathered and arranged by the 
Economic Club in 1896, must be convinced 
of a change for the better in the poor man's 
chance of livelihood. 

It would be hard to parallel to-day the 
story of James Strudwick and his wife Anne. 
They lived together as man and wife for over 
fifty years. For more than sixty years Strud- 
wick wrought upon one farm at a shilling a 
day, continuing his labor until within a week 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 111 

of his death. They had seven children, at 
least six of whom they reared to become 
heads of families in their turn. Yet, in spite 
of many mouths and little means, they never 
received a farthing from the parish. We are 
not to suppose their lot to have been harder 
than that of a multitude of families in 
England, nor than that of some in America, 
for they possessed rather an unusual capital 
of character. Some of the miners of their 
day lived in practical serfhood, being trans- 
ferable with the collieries or salt deposits in 
which they worked. There were then no 
legal safeguards thrown about child labor, 
and early in the century children were drafted 
from the workhouses and asylums of the 
great towns for a service in the mills of the 
north that was a virtual slavery. Indeed, it 
was not until 1819 that Sir Robert Peel suc- 
ceeded in passing a bill which provided that 
no child under nine should be employed in 
a cotton factory, and no young person under 
sixteen be allowed to work more than twelve 
hours a day exclusive of meals. 1 

In the United States the unsuccessful at- 

1 Cf. Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, The Standard of Life, 
especially the chapter, *' A Hundred Years Ago." 



112 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tempt of artisans in 1791 to procure a shorter 
day — their daily work then extending often 
through thirteen hours — is significant, not 
only of their rightful discontent with the con- 
ditions under which they worked, but of the 
almost entire lack of sympathy on the part of 
the general public with their attempts at bet- 
terment. In 1825, again we find the ordinary 
wages of labor astonishingly low, while the 
attempts at organization were still treated by 
the public with indifference, or with the cruel 
prejudice which so often springs from an un- 
defined fear. 1 

In the early winter of 1902, the writer had 
occasion to investigate the circumstances of 
a laborer's family in a New England town. 
Both man and wife were commonly regarded 
as of less than ordinary intellectual capacity ; 
both were accounted to be victims of bad en- 
vironment and worse heredity. Neither had 

1 For a more detailed discussion of some phases of this 
question see a series of articles by the Author, entitled " A 
Century's Influence : (1) Upon the Conscience of Christen- 
dom ; (2) Upon the Poor Man's Chance of Livelihood ; 
(3) Upon the Lot of the Dependent Classes ; (4) Upon the 
Worth of Human Life ; (5) Upon the Church's Sense of 
Responsibility ; " published in The Congregationalist and 
Christian World, Boston, February-April, 1901. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 113 

seemed to profit much by such educational 
opportunities as had offered themselves. It 
would be unfair to class them as criminals, 
although it should be noted that the woman 
had been in jail for street-brawling. As com- 
pared with the Strud wicks, whose case is cited 
by Sir Frederick Eden, they were distinctly 
ill provided with the capital of character. 
Yet on inquiry of the man's superintendent, it 
was found that he had regular employment 
and was counted a dependable workman. As 
the superintendent spoke, he turned to a pile 
of time-cards near by and looked up the 
amount of wages for November and December 

— the two months immediately preceding the 
investigation. The record showed $62 earned 
in November and $64 in December, and it was 
stated that these months were in no way ex- 
ceptional. It appeared further that the woman 
added to the family resources by going out 
more or less to service. After making every 
allowance for the fact that the autumn of 1901 
was a time of abundant work and good wages 

— as well as of high prices for all articles of 
household consumption — no fair-minded man 
can resist the force of the contrast between 
this family's lot and that of the Strudwicks. 



114 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

There was probably no opportunity in the 
world at the close of the eighteenth century 
for a man of this laborer's capacity and skill 
to make a living that would at all correspond 
with the return that his ordinary expenditure 
of labor brought him in the first year of the 
twentieth century. 

If, turning from the case of the poor man's 
chance of livelihood, we direct our attention to 
the lot of the dependent classes — the insane, 
the criminal, and those whose poverty compels 
them to rely in some degree upon corporate 
relief — we find a contrast between the begin- 
ning and end of the nineteenth century that is 
quite as notable. The famous articles on Insan- 
ity and Mad-houses in the " Edinburgh " and 
" Quarterly " Reviews of 1815, the former 
written by Sydney Smith, vividly portray the 
entire lack of system in some asylums and the 
systematic brutality in others. It was not 
until 1839 that John Con oily came to Han- 
well and banished the strait waistcoat, nor 
until the early '40's that the agitation which 
resulted in more humane and rational care of 
the insane began in New England. A writer 
in the "North American Review" of January, 
1843, says that within three months he had 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 115 

found one man near Boston confined in a 
cage about six feet square in a woodshed 
open to the public road. In the next town he 
found an unlighted shed, twelve by eight feet 
in size, connected with the almshouse, and in 
it a middle-aged man, nude and stark mad. 
At the same period the cage for the insane was 
no very extraordinary appurtenance to a New 
Hampshire farmhouse. In contrast with all 
this, there are few more striking sights in New 
England to-day than the great State Hospitals 
where the insane are treated, if need be at the 
public expense, with the best appliances that 
modern science has been able to suggest. 

The trend of last century's endeavor to deal 
with crime and the criminal was in this same 
direction of a clearer recognition of his rights 
and needs as a man. Some foolish experiments 
were tried, some failures were made, and the 
problem as a whole was by no means solved. 
But no intelligent man doubts that the abo- 
lition of imprisonment for debt — in 1829 
no less than three thousand persons are esti- 
mated to have been in confinement in Massa- 
chusetts alone for that cause — and the results 
of the work of reformers like Fowell Buxton, 
Alexander Maconochie, and Sir Walter Crof- 



116 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ton marked a distinct advance toward the an- 
swer of a most intricate and difficult question. 

There has been similar progress in the esti- 
mate placed by society upon the worth of 
human life. When, in 1810, Sir Samuel Ro- 
milly introduced into Parliament a bill abol- 
ishing the death penalty for shop-lifting, he 
was opposed and his bill defeated on the 
ground that only two years before he had 
been instrumental in passing a bill abolishing 
the death penalty for picking pockets, and 
there was no telling where the thing might 
end. One young man said to him frankly, 
" I am against your bill ; I am for hanging 
all." How well he expressed a common feel- 
ing in society is shown by the fact that when 
the nineteenth century came in, more than two 
hundred offenses were punishable with death 
in England. 

It is often insinuated that the tendency of 
philosophy during the nineteenth century has 
been to lend us 

"Evil dreams; 
So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life." 

Yet in point of fact, the individual life was 
never held to be so precious in society's eyes 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 117 

before. This is due partly to a more sensitive 
humanitarianism, and a keener feeling that it 
is society's business to safeguard a man's right 
to himself. The general revision of penal 
codes, the elaborate regulation of traffic by 
sea and land, as evidenced by such legislation 
as that advocated by the late Samuel Plimsoll, 
the Bed Cross movement originating in M. 
Dunant's experiences upon the field of Sol- 
ferino, and the vast pains and expense to which 
the United States goes to maintain its elabo- 
rate and efficient Life Saving Service, all indi- 
cate a new susceptibility of society to the fate 
of the individual. Science and philosophy 
have done much, also, to emphasize society's 
solidarity. However distasteful Scripture may 
be to our ears, the last century's experience 
has forced us to believe as never before that 
we are members one of another. Tyranny in 
China or Turkey in some degree disturbs and 
oppresses Christendom. Unsanitary condi- 
tions in Cuban ports threaten the health and 
prosperity of the United States. Now and 
then signs appear that some glimmerings 
of the truth that no nation can live to itself 
commercially are penetrating the thick dark- 
ness of our legislative halls. The social 



118 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and religious missionary is more in evidence 
than ever before both at home and abroad — 
and the missionary, whether he represent a 
church, college, social settlement, or trades 
union, is always a sign of society's solidarity. 
It would be, then, both dishonest and idle 
to deny the advance of the average individual 
during the last century. He has gained in 
material possessions, and in opportunity and 
range of life. If society's so-called problem 
could be expressed in terms of the standard 
of life of a century ago, there might be some 
hope of its solution. But the standard of life 
is an eternal variable. Man is the one un- 
satisfied creature, and the horizon of his ambi- 
tion increases as the square of the radius of his 
opportunity. Instead of comparing his to-day 
with his yesterday, he is prone to measure it by 
yesterday's dream for to-day. As a contempo- 
rary poet puts it, he is like a man who, — 

" dwelling in some smoke-dimmed town 
In a brief pause in labour's sullen wheel, — 

'Scaped from the street's dead dust and factory's frown, — 
In stainless daylight saw the pure seas roll, 

Saw mountains pillaring the pefect sky ; 
Then journeyed home, to carry in his soul 

The torment of the difference till he die." l 

1 W. Watson, quoted in Spectator, November 23, 1901, 
p. 800. 



THE SOCIAL UNREST 119 

It is in this " torment of the difference " that 
the present social unrest largely lies. The 
hungry man is by no means the most restless 
man to-day. The agitator is not generally a 
man who is in dire and immediate need. He 
is the man who is very conscious of " the dif- 
ference." This consciousness may simply rouse 
him to envy, malice, and all un charitableness. 
It may appeal to his sense of justice. It may 
open his eyes to certain definite and prac- 
ticable steps that can be taken toward the 
amelioration of present faulty conditions. In 
the first case he becomes a professional agi- 
tator, whose bitterness discounts his influence. 
In the second he may become one of those 
voices in the wilderness which haunt the souls 
of a generation of men — and which generally 
prove to be the forerunners of some gospel. 
In the third he makes a mark, and leaves a 
name as a practical reformer. He does not 
solve the Social Problem ; but he rearranges 
its factors. He does not assuage the unrest ; 
but he soothes the immediate pain ; he satisfies 
the day's hunger. 

The unrest abides. It signifies a certain 
inadequacy of human experience to meet the 
desire of the soul. It portends the certainty 



120 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of further change. It bespeaks the need of 
leadership. But more clearly than anything 
else, it proclaims the fact that society is not a 
machine, but an organism. 1 Its problems are 
the problems of life, not of mechanics. Its 
future depends not upon a formula, but upon 
an immanent force daily adapting environment 
to purpose — a force that shall prove its per- 
manent adequacy to changed and changing 
conditions. The answer to society's ever re- 
curring questions must be made not by the 
ipse dixit of authority, nor in terms of a 
philosophical, economic, or theological sys- 
tem, but in the words of a living and present 
Power. 

1 Cf. Herbert Spencer, The Dynamic Element in Life, a 
chapter added to the revised edition of the Principles of 
Biology in 1898 ; and Mr. A. S. Pringle-Pattison's comment 
upon it in the Quarterly Review, July, 1904, p. 2C3. 



VI 

THE THESIS 

In the preceding chapters an endeavor has 
been made to state a condition. We have 
seen how slow the world has been to admit 
the possibility of growth in theology. Theo- 
logians of the ultra-conservative type, though 
insisting upon the scientific character of the- 
ology, have seemed to regard it as the im- 
movable bed-rock upon which all scientific 
structure must be reared. Investigators might 
mine into it ; they might quarry its material 
for various purposes of building ; but the 
stuff itself was the deposit of an age of reve- 
lation long since closed. The contemners of 
theology — and they have been many during 
the last half century — have also denied the 
possibility of theological development because 
they have chosen to regard theology as mori- 
bund ; as destined to pass away ; as no longer 
worthy the attention of the man of genuinely 
scientific habit. Some of them have gone 



122 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

farther, and maintained that religion was as 
moribund as theology ; that it marked a mere 
passing phase in human development, and 
that the man of the present was outgrowing 
it as certainly as the man of a remote past 
outgrew the need and use of an arboreal 
habitat. The man of the present appears, 
however, to be impatient of this programme. 
Religion is not so easily sloughed off. If he 
rid himself of the faith that brings peace, he 
is very likely to find himself in the clutches 
of the superstition that brings fear. 

Hence have followed the rather tantalizing 
popular conditions sketched in Chapters III. 
and IV. Men have found themselves unable 
to abandon theological investigation and re- 
ligious observance without danger of surren- 
dering their highest prerogatives. They have 
found themselves almost equally unable to 
coordinate their fragmentary but precious 
progress in these realms into a satisfying 
experience. Meanwhile their embarrassment 
has been accentuated by analogous condi- 
tions in society (Chapter V.), where unde- 
niable political and material progress finds its 
footsteps dogged by persistent discontent. 

Religious experience has continued in spite 



THE THESIS 123 

of the fond unwisdom of the devout and the 
bitter contempt of the scornful. It has mul- 
tiplied the material of theology. Theology, 
however, has been distrustful of her power 
to use the material. Some few theological 
masons were at hand ; but no architect has 
appeared. Indeed, it is by no means certain 
that he is wanted, since the true architect is 
something of a prophet, and likely therefore to 
be a disturber of systems and a deviser of new 
types that sometimes refuse to harmonize with 
those to which we have become accustomed. 
A young clergyman spoke to me with enthu- 
siasm some years ago of the church in which 
he had just begun to preach. " It was a gem 

of a church ; the exact reproduction of ," 

and he named a country church in another 
land and belonging to a long bygone century. 
All the archaeologist and historian in his hearer 
went out to meet the young rector's enthusi- 
asm, but the question would arise whether a 
church in which service to God and man was 
to be rendered to-day ought to be regarded 
quite so exclusively as an article of vertu. 
Its peculiar charm seemed to consist not in 
its adaptation to present need so much as 
in its suggestion of a former adaptation to 



124 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the need of another day. It is true that the 
need is eternal; but it is equally true that 
our attempts to meet it to-day, if they are to 
have any measure of success, must be more 
than copies. 

The inadequacy of any formal system to 
withstand the encroachments of time is be- 
coming ever more evident. We are reminded 
of it by the periodic embarrassment of in- 
stitutions endowed and chartered to teach 
certain doctrines. The trustees of lecture 
foundations conditioned upon the promulga- 
tion of once well-established views, or even 
upon the treatment of specified themes, are 
sometimes driven to strange devices to obtain 
competent lecturers and at the same time 
escape misappropriation of funds. The even- 
tual impotence of the dead hand has been 
among the hardest of lessons for the world 
to learn. Pretty distinct glimpses of it have 
reached the eyes of to-day, however. As a 
result, the attitude of the world is half fear- 
ful and half expectant. Men are conscious of 
transition. Some, as has been already inti- 
mated, look to see both theology and religion 
go by the board altogether. Others look for 
the advent of a new system-builder- — some 



THE THESIS 125 

philosophical or theological architect, who 
shall devise a more lasting structure than 
those which time and the hour have under- 
mined. The question which it is the purpose 
of this chapter to raise is whether the day of 
the system, philosophical or theological, as a 
completed structure has not gone forever, and 
whether we are not in a position to welcome 
something better and more vital as its substi- 
tute. 

In the realm of physical science no one 
would dare any longer to proclaim himself the 
professor of a system which should attempt 
to compass the sum total of knowledge in 
such fashion as to preclude investigation in 
any direction or the influx of new light at any 
point. We have passed from a mechanical 
into a vital method in our " secular " learning. 
To effect such a transition in theology would 
once have seemed like a going over to the side 
of the agnostic. Yet the transition has been 
made by a multitude of thoughtful men, for all 
that. They have seen that the agnostic had 
something to teach them. He has generally 
been bumptious, often ill-bred, and still more 
often perhaps dishonest, in so far as he rejoiced 
to misrepresent his opponent's views. He has 



126 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

frequently been dogmatic in his agnosticism, 
and so denied himself. Nevertheless, he has 
brought his message to the world. It was 
very largely a message of protest, and there- 
fore partial and temporary, but it needed to 
be proclaimed. With it he was forever cudgel- 
ing dogma ; and dogma undoubtedly deserved 
cudgeling. The agnostic's mistake has gener- 
ally lain in the fact that the play of his cudgel 
has been directed to compassing dogma's death 
instead of her humiliation. The sources of her 
life were beyond his reach. The trappings of 
her pride were not, and she was bound to prove 
a more effective handmaid to the truth for hav- 
ing them stripped off ; since the dogma, which 
when enthroned has so often proved to be a 
tyrant over the household of faith, is nothing 
after all but the hypothesis, which, sitting in 
the place of a servant, has shown herself emi- 
nently fitted to the household's needs. 

The ground of science is not merely the 
principle of the Continuity of Nature. It 
consists rather in an idea of nature itself. 
It is a faith, which experience seems to fit, 
that nature is self -consistent ; and that the 
Dynamic of Nature — the Force which mani- 



THE THESIS 127 

fests itself in all nature's processes — is 
rational, and so far forth personal. In the 
light of this faith the investigator proceeds 
with observation and experiment. He states 
and tests his hypothesis in perfect assurance 
that the processes of nature will verify and 
indorse some hypothesis — either this or one 
toward which the mistakes in this will direct 
him. He is by no means disheartened because 
he finds post hoc sometimes masquerading 
in the garb of propter hoc. The fact that 
the disguise so often succeeds for a time is 
but an indirect testimony to the faith men 
have and ought to have in a rationally or- 
dered universe. They are so sure that ade- 
quate cause exists for every event that it is 
small wonder that they should be sometimes 
led astray by the sanguine and premature 
cry, " Lo, here ! " or " Lo, there ! " This faith, 
even when building upon an inadequate 
hypothesis, is never an object of contempt to 
the really scientific man. It is always more 
rational than the attitude of the unbeliever 
in nature's steadfastness and continuity of 
process. 

The result of the great scientific renais- 
sance since Bacon's day has therefore been 



128 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

twofold. The inductive method substantiated 
man's faith in the rational character of the 
Power which underlies and expresses itself in 
the course of nature. It has, on the other 
hand, warned us against too implicit faith in 
any so-called system which claims to sum up 
and comprehend nature. The arc of adequate 
scientific investigation is not the arc of a cir- 
cle whose circumference we can describe and 
whose content we can measure. It is rather 
the arc of a parabola, whose law we may de- 
fine, but whose extent is beyond us, and 
whose circuit is and must always remain open. 
Only at infinity is the axis of experience fully 
competent to determine the direction of the 
line of universal truth which there runs 
parallel to it. 

So with theology and the scientific ap- 
proach to it of recent years. The content 
of revelation is not complete. The system 
which describes and deals with it is and 
must remain partial. There must be room 
for growth, and glad expectation of it. The 
real things to be sought are as clear concep- 
tions as possible of the source, the nature, 
and the working method of this principle of 
growth. The discovery of these things will 



THE THESIS 129 

meet the desire of a day eager for a recon- 
struction of systems better than anything else 
can do. Such discovery will not always ful- 
fill the day's immediate expectation ; but it 
will do something better by demonstrating 
the fact that the expectation of a completed 
system which shall withstand the wear and 
tear of time is so meagre as to be unworthy. 
The thing which the world has a right to 
expect is the vision of a process and the intro- 
duction to a principle whose scope and power 
shall be limitless. This is not to deny the 
validity and use of systems. It is simply 
to impugn the perpetuity of any one system. 
A system of theology or philosophy is like 
a deciduous tree. It has its seasons of um- 
brageous growth, when it impresses every 
on-looker by its rich vitality. To this suc- 
ceeds the period when the signs of growth 
disappear, and with the clearer definition of 
trunk, branch, and twig it takes on a look of 
wintry permanence. Another season of assimi- 
lation of new experience with its appeal to 
the imagination comes, to be followed by a 
second period of arrested development and 
exacter definition, until at last the great cli- 
macteric of life is reached and passed. The 



130 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

system, like the tree, may yet endure for gen- 
erations as a monument of vast interest and 
usefulness. Its great significance has now be- 
come historical. It belongs to the past rather 
than to the future. The violence of man or 
the slow process of decay finally overthrows 
it, and the places which knew it know it no 
more forever. As a systematic arrangement 
of material appealing to human attention and 
sympathy, the thing is done ; but the vital 
principle which gave this arrangement a real 
though temporary validity is still extant, al- 
ready arraying itself in new forms, and pre- 
paring to render a further service. 

It is in such a sense as this that we must 
accept systems of theology or philosophy. 
Not one of them that ever succeeded in con- 
centrating the serious attention of any consid- 
erable body of thoughtful men was probably 
wholly false. Not one, merely as a system, 
has ever shown itself to be completely and 
permanently valid. The time has come when 
we should recognize this fact with glad resig- 
nation. We shall not be the poorer for it, if 
it teach us that the secret of permanence in 
philosophy and theology alike lies in a prin- 
ciple, not in a system. As the secret of adap- 



THE THESIS 131 

tation to a changing environment is the secret 
of the life of a man ; or as the principle of 
civic continuance is to be found in the intel- 
ligent exercise of human liberty ; so the secret 
of a rational theology and a practical religion 
lies in the possession of a principle of life, 
resident in the world and especially in man ; 
rational in its ways and means of working ; 
and purposeful, to this extent, at least, that 
its outlook is manifestly, even though some- 
times mysteriously, upon the future. 

Every candid and intelligent student of the 
history of religion and of physical science 
must be struck, I think, with the aversion 
which men have shown to a belief in non-resi- 
dent causes. Their theory of life and change 
has always tended to ground itself upon a 
resident principle. There is profound signifi- 
cance in the readiness of primitive peoples to 
believe in spirit-possession. Even the supersti- 
tion that leads such numbers in the present 
day to have recourse to the wizard and clair- 
voyant, or to sit in gaping wonder while a 
so-called medium summons the spirits of the 
great departed to write bad poetry upon dirty 
slates, or return silly answers to fatuous ques- 
tions, is not without its meaning. It all goes 



132 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to show how ineradicable is the tendency of 
the human mind to find the invisible and in- 
definable Cause of things near at hand instead 
of far away. Man is naturally a believer in 
resident causes, and, at the same time, he is a 
believer in a transcendent Cause. The appar- 
ent antinomy may plague him. but it persists. 
The " Big Man " about whom the Fuegians 
spoke to the inquirers of H. M. S. Beagle, 
the " Baiame " or " Mysterious Chief " of the 
Australians, 1 as well as the " Great Spirit " of 
the North American Indians, are all exceed- 
ingly anthropomorphic ; but they are also tran- 
scendent. Their deity removes them from im- 
mediate and tangible contact with men, but 
not altogether from some mysterious and im- 
mediate connection with the causes of events. 
Their sons, or agents, or the spirits hostile to 
them and with which they are at war, are 
resident on earth, and through their interven- 
tion good or ill comes to pass. 2 The Chinese 
warping a house-boat through the primitive 
lock on one of his canals divides his working 
forces into two companies. One hauls the 

1 Cf. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Australia, chap- 
ter xviii. 

2 "Anthropology — A Science?" Quarterly Review, J r an- 
uaiy, 1902. 



THE THESIS 133 

boat, the other beats tom-toms to fend off 
the activity of the malignant spirits resident 
in the neighborhood, whose presence would 
invite disaster. The Indian is keen to make 
distinction between his good and bad medi- 
cine. The negro, and not infrequently the 
white man, cherishes his rabbit-foot. The 
intelligent, and very likely pious, inhabitant 
of civilized communities likes better to see the 
new moon over the right than the left shoul- 
der. He laughs at what he probably consid- 
ers the fossil footprint of an extinct supersti- 
tion. Yet he bears witness, in company with 
his sign-fearing and magic-practicing brother, 
to the tendency which all men feel to account 
for events upon the ground of resident causes. 
At the other end of the scale, the philo- 
sopher works out his theory of development. 
Whether he believe in a transcendent First 
Cause or not, he founds his theory immedi- 
ately upon immanent or resident causes. He 
is doubtless following a strictly scientific 
method. Yet the impulse behind the method 
is the same that actuated the African in de- 
veloping his theory of magic ; or the my- 
th ologist in ascribing a personal resident to 
each constellation, grove, and mountain ; or 



134: THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the Lystran leaders, crying in view of an un- 
explained and startling event, " The gods are 
come down to us in the likeness of men." 

When philosophy undertakes to organize 
and correlate the diverse experience of men, 
the relation between the magic-monger and 
the scientist appears. The fact has to be 
recognized that the human mind can reason 
only upon the basis of immanent and resident 
causes. It also becomes evident that the de- 
veloped human mind demands the unification 
of these causes and their assignment to a com- 
mon source. Whether we call that source 
" God/' or the " Father of the Gods," or a 
"Big Man," or a "Cosmic Force," the sig- 
nificant inclination to use the capital initial 
recurs. The intelligent demand for a recog- 
nition of this Ultimate Cause, immanent in 
all subordinate causes and resident in all 
events, will eventually prove, I believe, to be 
irresistible. 

The comparatively recent doctrine of de- 
velopment known as Evolution has not only 
emphasized the necessity and suggested the 
method of unifying our knowledge in the 
realm of physical science, but it has also gone 
on to demand a similar unification of both 



THE THESIS 135 

theory and experience in sociology, psycho- 
logy, ethics, and religion. One of its most 
important services has been rendered by its 
claim that no realm of human thought is 
foreign to its principle, and that its method 
will upon investigation prove to be universal. 
In view of the fact that Evolution won its 
spurs and demonstrated its power in the do- 
main of physical science, it was scarcely to be 
wondered at that ethics and theology should 
have looked askance at it and been slow to 
acknowledge its validity for them. They 
might readily have been more hospitable to 
it, however, had their ears been attentive to 
the teaching of their own prophets, for Kant, 
Goethe, and Tennyson had all more or less 
explicitly forecast its coming. As has hap- 
pened before in great crises of history, how- 
ever, the foretold and hoped-for event, when 
it came, made its advent in so unexpected a 
quarter, and voiced its truth in such startling 
and unwelcome words, that those who should 
have been most ready to welcome it proved 
to be its bitterest opponents. The "Origin 
of Species" seemed to contradict all current 
notions of creation, and the " Descent of 
Man " threatened to rob humanity, not merely 



136 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of the doctrine of Divine Sonship, but even 
of the poor distinction of total depravity. 
Man was to be no longer great even as a sin- 
ner, but must be regarded simply as the last of 
the beasts that perish. This was the fear that 
men had of Evolution, with its demand for 
the reorganization of every realm of know- 
ledge in accordance with its new principle ; 
and the claim of some of the earlier evolution- 
ists, who were scarcely more clairvoyant than 
their opponents, went far to justify the fear. 
They appeared to imply, even if they did not 
explicitly claim, that the resident causes to 
which development was due were resident in 
events in such a sense that they might be con- 
sidered to be independent of, and, possibly, 
even unrelated to, any Ultimate Cause or Rea- 
son. More than this, the great doctrine of 
Natural Selection and the Survival of the Fit- 
test appeared to imply that all rational life 
must of necessity be selfish ; and that success 
in the strife after food, shelter, and such train- 
ing of faculty as might enable a man to dis- 
tance his fellow at whatever cost to the latter 
was the true object of life's best ambition. 
They seemed to imply further that life was ex- 
clusively a thing of the present ; that the past, 



THE THESIS 137 

though the ladder by which man had climbed, 
might be safely kicked away when he had 
made good his foothold on the plane of 
to-day ; and that the future (meaning by that 
word the period beyond immediate experience 
in this life) was to be disregarded entirely, 
except so far as the contemplation of it might 
serve to make him resourceful in delaying its 
advent to the latest possible moment. 

In point of fact, however, during all this 
time Evolution was really elucidating two 
principles, which, could they have been fore- 
seen, might very well have mitigated, if they 
did not end, this strife. The first of these 
was that the attitude of any creature toward 
the future is of vast moment in determining 
his hold upon the present and his rank in the 
scale of creation. In proportion as the parent 
gave of his vital force to the sustenance and 
the training of his offspring, the assurance 
grew that the race in which this group of 
parent and child was a social unit would make 
good its claim to continued existence. With 
the prolongation of infancy the creature rose 
in the scale of creation. With the appearance 
of man this prolongation of infancy appeared 
to reach its normal climax ; but as man him- 



138 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

self developed intellectually and ethically, it 
appeared that a yet further prolongation of 
infancy must be provided for. The child was 
now seen to be dependent upon the parent, 
not merely for sustenance and shelter during 
the period of youth's physical incompetence ; 
he was further dependent for education and 
ethical nurture, in view not merely of the 
parent's personal experience, but of the re- 
corded experience of the race. In a new sense, 
a regard for the future was forced upon every 
normal human life. It became evident to far- 
seeing men that life at its best involved an 
investment of the present in the future. 

While this has scarcely come to be recog- 
nized as a f ormulative principle in the doctrine 
of Evolution, it can hardly be questioned that 
its recognition is only a matter of time. The 
moment this comes to pass, place will not only 
have been found, but necessity will have arisen, 
for the office of religion as voiced in the two 
great commandments of Christianity. How 
deep the significance of this evolutionary prin- 
ciple is for society, Mr. Kidd has lately sug- 
gested to us in a volume, the main conten- 
tions of which are likely to abide, however 
much we may deplore the author's lamentable 



THE THESIS 139 

style, or take issue with many of his argu- 
ments. 

The second principle elucidated, half in its 
own despite, by Evolution was that the process 
of development is not only orderly, it is pur- 
poseful. This is, of course, only to say that 
the order of events in the universe, as viewed 
from the standpoint of Evolution, seems to be 
susceptible of scientific treatment. The very 
phrases, " Natural Selection " and " Descent 
of Man," imply that the development process 
has a rationale. It is capable of apprehension 
by a thinking man. Its law can be at least 
approximately determined by observation, in- 
duction, and experiment. Now it is difficult 
to convince men for very long that a develop- 
ment which is so orderly as to make a direct 
appeal to the human mind, and which is so 
consistent in the great sweep of its onward 
march as to point to a generally continu- 
ous evolution of the higher from the lower, 
is not the product of a Reason whose methods 
it is within the power of human reason to 
follow with at least partial intelligence. The 
whole process is so responsive to thought; the 
events in it seem upon the whole to be so 
subordinate to the rule of the human intellect ; 



140 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the regimen of reason seems to fit their case 
so well, that it is impossible to doubt their 
origin in reason. As I have before implied, 
the doctrine of Evolution has given back to us 
a teleology far richer than the somewhat me- 
chanical " Theory of Final Causes " which it 
took away. 

Here, then, the evolutionary hypothesis pro- 
vides us with a principle that is essentially 
religious, for it is based upon the existence of 
a " Cosmic Force " or " Power," which so far 
as we can see is omnipresent. It is resident 
in events. It is immanent in all departments 
of life and experience. It is self-consistent in 
its working. It appears to be future-regard- 
ing and purposeful in a large and comprehen- 
sive sense. Its methods seem to be rational 
in that, as soon as discovered, they issue a 
direct and immediate challenge to the human 
intellect. All this is only to say that the prin- 
ciple whose working we term Evolution is a 
personal power. This has always been the 
claim of religion. It will become, I believe, 
no less really the assertion of science; for 
science with an ever increasing certainty pro- 
claims the doctrine of one universal principle 
of being, life, and development. It is impatient 



THE THESIS 141 

of any theory which would separate effect from 
cause, or remove the principle of life and de- 
velopment out of the universe in which the 
manifestations of its power appear ; or make 
the processes of this power fundamentally irra- 
tional. 

We turn to the Christian religion to inquire 
if there be any corresponding principle of 
power, immanent, resident, future-regarding, 
purposeful, and rational, working by means of 
imperfect instruments upon obdurate material 
for the attainment of large ends by means of 
a process of development. I believe that we 
find it in the often misunderstood and gen- 
erally neglected Doctrine of the Spirit. 



VII 
THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 

An intelligent man who should come to the 
reading of the Gospels for the first time 
and without theological predisposition would 
doubtless be impressed with Christ's sense of 
the partial nature of His own work in the 
flesh. Early in the ministry He began to per- 
ceive and to teach that His bodily presence 
with the disciples was but an episode or inci- 
dent in the work of redemption. He looked 
forward, and taught them to look forward, to 
a chapter of experience very different from 
that in which they then found themselves. 
The shepherd was to be taken and the sheep 
scattered. As a result of His ministry — a min- 
istry that was directed to making life whole — 
division was to appear between the world and 
His disciples. It was to penetrate into fami- 
lies, to break up households, to visit hitherto 
relatively contented communities with utter 
unrest. Though a very Prince of Peace, He 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 143 

saw with perfect certainty that His mission 
was to be like the coming of a sword and the 
kindling of a fire among the conventions in 
which men were making their homes. The 
Gospel was to prove a death-dealing as well 
as a life-giving message. Its principle was a 
principle of discord as truly as of order. 

Or it was also an integral part of Christ's 
teaching that the death and the discord were 
to be capable of translation into terms of life 
and peace. It is instructive to note the perti- 
nacity with which He clung to the things that 
live and grow in illustrating the coming of 
the Kingdom. The wheat sprouts secretly, un- 
noticed if not forgotten of the sower until 
the blade appears. The leaven is hid in the 
meal and works by a process which must have 
been completely mysterious then, although 
its method is partially discerned to-day. The 
mustard seed, least among its fellows, becomes 
greatest of herbs by the exercise of powers 
which in a sense are resident, although their 
source and method are alike beyond our ken. 
In each case the discord-element appears. The 
plow cleaves and overturns the sward in its 
preparation of the earth for the seed, as the 
hand of the bread-maker spreads commotion 



144 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and disarrangement through the mass of the 
meal that every part may be leavened. 

The disciples were eager to interpret their 
Master's teachings into the vocabulary of the 
present or the near future. He was repeatedly 
obliged to tell them that this would not do. 
The vocabulary of the present was not rich 
enough to fit it for the task. Using that vo- 
cabulary, He was obliged to bury much teach- 
ing in it for the future to develop. Many of 
His parables were cryptic utterances, whose 
significance only became clear in the light of 
later experience. His very presence in the 
flesh was a hiding as well as a revealing of 
the truth ; and it was one of the fundamental 
necessities of His mission that He should go 
away, and go by the door of supreme sacrifice. 
No life ever needed a right perspective so 
much, if it is to be understood. In a most emi- 
nent degree it was forward-looking and future- 
regarding. Christ never cut loose from what 
was vital in the past ; He fulfilled the past. 
The present was intensely vivid to Him and 
He lived in it. Yet the key to both past and 
present was in the hands of the future. 

Hence arose the expediency of His depar- 
ture. " The veil of flesh hung dark " before 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 145 

the eyes of those who must see clearly if they 
were ever to guide their fellows into a saving 
knowledge of the truth. The message em- 
bodied in Christ's life and death was so vital as 
to constitute a new epoch in divine revelation 
and in human experience ; but it could only 
be understood, Christ told his friends, through 
the presence and interpretation of another 
7rapdK\7]To<;, or Helper, whose advent should 
succeed His own departure. This Helper was 
to be Lord of the Future. The New Dispen- 
sation was to be His rather than that of the 
Man, Christ Jesus. He was to interpret the 
revelation of Christ and to apply it to life. 
He was to be the treasurer of truth, bringing 
out of His treasury the new and the old, show- 
ing those hitherto hidden interrelations be- 
tween them which should give new significance 
to both. It should be His to guide men into 
all the truth. He should clear their eyes for 
the discernment of eternal distinctions, convict 
their hearts of sin and need, and win their lives 
into consonance with God's will. In Him the 
world was to know God forever as immanent 
and executive. 

In another chapter I shall attempt to show 
how slow the Church has been to apprehend 



146 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

this doctrine, to apply it to life, and to enjoy 
its freedom ; as well as to indicate its wealth 
of significance for our present somewhat con- 
fused and troubled day. I pass on here, to 
indicate very briefly the anticipation of it that 
breathes through the Old Testament, and its 
further amplification in the teachings of the 
New. 

It was long ago remarked by Professor 
Kobertson Smith that the idea of the spirit- 
ual in the Hebrew Scriptures seemed to con- 
nect itself with the divine working rather than 
with the divine nature. 1 

The Hebrew word, ruah, means in the first 
place, breath of the atmosphere, or wind; 
second, the breath of man ; third, the prin- 
ciple of vitality, as when the spirit of Jacob re- 
vived upon learning that Joseph lived; fourth, 
the life of feeling, as when Pharaoh's spirit was 
troubled at his inability to recall his dream ; 
fifth, the spiritual element in human nature, 
as when Moses implores Jehovah, " the God of 
the spirits of all flesh/ ' to appoint a leader for 
Israel ; and sixth, the vital energy of the divine 

1 Prophets of Israel, p. 61, quoted by Professor Swete in 
Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, art. " Holy Spirit." Those 
familiar with this most suggestive article will note the in- 
debtedness of this section of the present chapter to it. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 147 

nature. This vital energy appears in the phe- 
nomena of human life. Elihu exhorts Job to 
hear him, because the Spirit of God had made 
him and the breath of the Almighty gave him 
life. 1 It shows itself also in keeping, renew- 
ing, and withdrawing life. If the Almighty 
should gather unto himself His Spirit and 
His breath, all flesh must perish together. 2 
The man who possesses exceptional power as 
a leader is described as a man "in whom is 
the Spirit." 3 Even the craftsman's skill of 
Bezalel is referred to the special inspiration 
of Jehovah. He is represented as called by 
name, and "filled with the Spirit of God, in 
wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, 
and in all manner of workmanship." 4 So the 
Spirit of God might visit and make use of 
men of doubtful life like Baalam or Saul, but 
His abiding presence and power could only 
be the possession of the man of character. 

The Prophet was the man upon whom in 
most eminent degree the Spirit of Jehovah 
rested. " The true prophet is one who is lifted 
up by the Spirit of God into communion with 
Him, so that he is enabled to interpret the 

1 Job xxxiii. 4. 2 Job xxxiv. 15. 

8 Numbers xxvii. 18. 4 Exodus xxxv. 30-33. 



148 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

divine will and to act as a medium of com- 
munication between God and men." * It 
would perhaps be going too far to claim that 
in the Old Testament the work of the Spirit 
of Jehovah is made distinctively personal. 
There is an approach to a distinction of per- 
son in the rare contrast between Spirit and 
Word ; but upon the whole the Spirit of God 
seems rather to be an expression for God im- 
manent and executive in the affairs of the 
world. The thing that is really notable is the 
courage and consistency with which all energy 
is referred to a divine source. God is in the 
beginning. His Spirit broods and moves 
upon the face of the waters. He breathes into 
man the breath of life, and man in turn be- 
comes a living soul, capable of initiative, but 
still dependent upon the divine sources of 
power. In the common exercise of ordinary 
human abilities the divine energy was so 
thinly veiled as to be discernible to the really 
clairvoyant eye ; while in all genius or emi- 
nent talent it stood forth immediate and efful- 
gent. " The Hebrew Scriptures — in contrast 
to the timidity of many of their apologists — 
emphasize the origin of human valour and 

1 Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 403. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 149 

justice, skill, art, and wisdom, all common vir- 
tue and common knowledge — as by the in- 
spiration of Almighty God. The earth is 
Jehovah's and the fullness thereof. The Spirit 
of man is the candle of Jehovah. By Him 
kings reign and princes decree justice." * 

As time went on, the Palestinian Jews di- 
vided into sects and grew subservient to cere- 
monial law. Under this change the larger 
doctrine of the Spirit seems to have disap- 
peared. The Palestinian books in the Apocry- 
pha have but few references to the Spirit. 
This was natural in view of the increasing 
importance which the apocalyptic method was 
assuming, since the artificiality of the hidden 
and the occult is always at variance with the 
simplicity which characterizes the Old Tes- 
tament idea of the Spirit. It was impossible 
for a simple faith in the divine immanence 
to coexist with the extraordinarily elaborate 
angelology and demonology which the school 
of the Pharisees early began to develop and 
teach. 2 

1 G. A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the 
Old Testament, pp. Ill, 112. 

2 Cf. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 
Appendix XIII., and also Porter, art. "Apocrypha," in 
Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible. 



150 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

So much of the larger and more vital doc- 
trine as survived, appears to have taken refuge 
among the semi-heretical Jews of Alexandria. 
The book of Wisdom reflects and expounds 
it. " For wisdom which is the worker of 
all things, taught me. . . . For wisdom is 
more moving than any motion : she passeth 
and goeth through all things by reason of 
her pureness. For she is the breath of the 
power of God, and a pure influence flowing 
from the glory of the Almighty. . . . For 
she is the brightness of the everlasting light, 
the unspotted mirror of the power of God, 
and the image of his goodness." * " For thine 
incorruptible Spirit is in all things." 2 The 
real universality of this doctrine, developing 
as it does the inchoate universality of the Old 
Testament references to the Spirit, and look- 
ing forward to the explicit teaching of the 
Gospel, is best brought out by Philo. As 
Professor Swete has put it, " The Spirit comes 
to all men, since even the worst of men have 
their moments of inspiration, their glimpses 
of better and higher things. ... Of the 
ethical aspects of the Spirit's work in man, 
Philo has little to say, except that its f unc- 

1 Wisdom vii. 22-26. 2 Wisdom xii. 1. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 151 

tion is to promote clearness of mental vision 
and capacity for the intellectual knowledge 
of God, and that it fulfills this mission either 
by purifying and elevating, or as in the case 
of the prophet, by superseding the natural 
faculties." 1 

As we enter the realm of the New Testa- 
ment, a change takes place in the terms used, 
and we find the hitherto rare expression to 
Trvevfxa to ay lop gaining a great preponder- 
ance. The Christian Church does not yet 
seem to realize the important place which the 
New Testament writers give to the work 
of the Spirit as related to that of Christ; or 
perhaps more exactly, the attempt to realize 
it has been mechanical and unnatural, as 
though both the Incarnation and the com- 
ing of the Holy Ghost were devices to which 
God had been obliged to resort, instead of 
great normal self-declarations of His nature. 
In the view of the New Testament teach- 
ing, " The coming of the Spirit corresponds 
to the coming of the Son, mutatis mutan- 
dis. . . . The Son came to unite Himself 
to human nature, the Spirit came to inhabit 
it. The Son came to tabernacle amongst men, 

1 Dictionary of the Bible, art. "Holy Spirit," B : II. 



152 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the Spirit to dwell in them. But with each 
coming a divine mission began which marks 
a new departure in God's dealings with man- 
kind." 

I have already referred to the words of Jesus 
in which He told those about Him of the 
necessity for His departure. One of the most 
conspicuous illustrations of the divine poise 
and balance with which He wrought appears 
in His patience with the obdurate material 
which He had to mould to His purposes. His 
work was one for the introduction of which it 
was needful that the divine should be trans- 
lated not merely into terms of the human, but 
also, if we may so speak, into terms of the 
corporeal. The Logos could never become 
really articulate except by means of His body 
— a body to be worn with toil and to be laid 
aside with suffering. But it was equally true 
that the Word could never become completely 
articulate and intelligible while Jesus as a visi- 
ble bodily presence strove to utter it to men 
who tended to interpret everything in terms of 
the temporal and earthy. They were not ready 
yet to grasp the great distinction between the 
personal and the corporeal. The presence of 
their Master as a human figure before their 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 153 

eyes rendered it practically impossible that 
they should attain to this distinction. All that 
Christ could do, so to speak, was to perform 
the great deeds of objective ministry, and 
to tell the disciples that the significance of 
this ministry lay in the future. Yet in telling 
them this He implied that they would be quite 
as really under personal guidance then as now. 
"When He, the Spirit of Truth shall come, 
He shall lead you into all the truth." 

It is worth while here to note the character 
of this influence and guidance. The verb is 
68r)yy}(T€L — a compound of 6Sds, a way, and 
rjyeofjLai, to lead — and the meaning lies suf- 
ficiently plain upon its face. This leadership 
into the truth was to be a simple and natural 
thing. There was to be no miraculous over- 
powering of a man and dragging him perforce 
into the realm of truth ; but the process begun 
by Jesus and limited in a sense by His corpo- 
real presence was to go on. The obdurate and 
intractable material among the disciples would 
tend to remain obdurate and intractable ; but 
by degrees it would be softened and moulded 
to higher ends, as the guidance of the Spirit 
of Truth continued. It is nowhere implied by 
Jesus -that any sudden illapse of power was 



154 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to come upon His followers to clothe them or 
their successors with the divine attribute o£ 
omniscience, or to relieve them of the necessity 
of following step by step into those realms of 
truth which were the Spirit's home and their 
goal. There is here on the one hand no im- 
plication that the Spirit's guidance involved 
the infallibility of the disciple who was led, 
or on the other that the guidance of the Spirit 
was to be confined to the group who then 
listened to Jesus in that upper chamber, or to 
their immediate successors. 

The significance of this verb ohrjyrjcrei grows 
upon the reader as he ponders the phrase 
immediately following its object — et? rrjv 
akrjOeiav Tra&av, " into all the truth." There 
is, it should be remarked, an alternative read- 
ing here with the preposition eV followed by 
the dative ; but the two readings almost imply 
each other. If we read the accusative with 
ets, then it is into the depths of the great 
realm of truth that the disciples are to be led; 
if the dative with eV, then the thought would 
seem to be of a leading to and fro through 
truth's green pastures and beside the waters 
of its comfort. 

This was Christ's thesis as it is represented 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 155 

in John xvi. 12, 13. 1 What follows was in the 
nature of an amplification of it. The Spirit of 
Truth was not to speak from Himself merely, 
as though His presence and work represented a 
breach in the continuity of God's self-revela- 
tion. There is no thought of a distinction in 
the Godhead so objective as to need for its em- 
phasis the obscuration of its unity. The work 
of the Spirit was to be immediately related to 
the work of Christ the Saviour. The material 
of truth was, so to speak, furnished by Christ. 
The Spirit was to bring men to avail them- 
selves of the material, to build with it, to work 
it over into such forms that life could be shel- 
tered and nourished by it. The Spirit, too, was 
to reveal the architectonic plan for society 
as men were able to receive it. He would open 
their eyes to the real significance of their expe- 
rience. He would flood the stagnant shallows 
of their lives with the full tides of His grace 
and power. He would lead them to a con- 
templation of divine mysteries, especially as 
revealed in Jesus ; but He would never leave 
them to mere contemplation, even though they 

1 For the relation between the Johannine and the synoptic 
view, which must of course influence every student of these 
passages, cf. Wendt, Teachings of Jesus, ii. 252 sqq. 



156 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

might plead like Peter on the Mount to be per- 
mitted to build tabernacles and remain. The 
Spirit's work does not end in passivity, be that 
passivity never so ecstatic, but in service. 

The more deeply the student ponders the 
Johannine treatment of this great theme, the 
more he inclines toward the use of some ten- 
tative formula to express the Trinitarian sug- 
gestions of it. To avoid certain shipwreck 
upon the Scylla of definition and at the same 
time to steer clear of the Charybdis of utter 
vacuity and vagueness is no easy matter. It 
would seem, however, that the narrator of this 
discourse of Jesus was proceeding upon the 
hypothesis that in the Father, God is ; in the 
Son, He utters himself, thus becoming artic- 
ulate and intelligible to men ; while in the 
person of the Spirit, He appears among men, 
not merely articulate now, but executive — 
working in, upon, and through them. It will 
be objected in some quarters that upon the 
forehead of such doctrine as this can be dis- 
cerned the Hegelian brand. To which the 
grateful answer is to be made, that whatever 
suspicion may still attach to the great name 
of Hegel, it has, I believe, forever lost its 
damning power. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 157 

It will have been noticed that the passage 
upon which comment has just been made is not 
one of those containing the distinctive Jo- 
hannine term for the Spirit — 6 TrapaKXrjTos. 
This word appears four times in the Last 
Discourse and nowhere else except in the 
first Epistle of St. John, when it is applied to 
the glorified Christ exercising His mediatorial 
office ; where it is translated "Advocate." The 
verb TrapaKaXeo) means to call to one's side, 
to summon, especially for help, as an accused 
man may summon counsel for his defense at 
the bar. Hence Trapa/cX^ros means one who 
pleads another's cause — an advocate. Philo 
uses it in the sense of intercessor. It is this 
office that is designated by the references in 
all three of the Synoptic Gospels to the help 
which the Spirit might be trusted to render to 
disciples when they were brought before rulers 
and magistrates and knew not what to say ; al- 
though the Johannine word is not used. When 
the translation " Comforter " is retained, it 
must be with the understanding that it is used 
in the older fashioned and general sense of 
" comfort," as in the law which defines trea- 
son as giving " aid and comfort " to the 
enemy. The King James translators of course 



158 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

had this significance of " comfort " in their 
minds, and their use of " Comforter " meant 
not merely one who assuages grief and light- 
ens sorrow, but one who stands ready to give 
aid and support all along the line of human 
need. It is to be noticed that in all the pas- 
sages where 6 TTapaKXrjTos appears, it evidently 
has a distinctly personal significance. He 
comes forth from the Godhead as a source. 
He is the Spirit of truth proceeding from the 
Father, and the scope of His activity is as 
wide as the realm of truth itself ; but His im- 
mediate and special work appears to be the tak- 
ing of the things of Christ and showing them 
to men. Commentators of the last generation 
used to ask whether this Helper might be ex- 
pected to add to the revelation made in Christ. 
In the common acceptance of the question we 
must answer, Yes, since the influences of the 
Spirit are always revealing to men things that 
at first thought they refuse to connect with 
the teachings of Jesus. As the revelation pro- 
ceeds, however, the principles that govern 
action under it find their source and their sub- 
stantiation in His Gospel. Almost every Johan- 
nine reference to the work of the Spirit not 
only harmonizes with the theory of a progres- 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 159 

sive revelation, but seems to demand it, if 
we are to reach any adequate comprehension 
of Christ's promise, or to enjoy the fruits of 
His mission in any other than a narrow and 
meagre way. The scope of the Spirit's work 
is far more comprehensive than the Christian 
Church has often been willing to recognize. 1 

One further fact brought oat by a compari- 
son of the other passages relating to the office 
of the Spirit with this which we are consider- 
ing must not be passed unnoticed. It has to 
do with the method of the Spirit in accom- 
plishing His purpose. That purpose is no- 
thing less than the conquest of the world. The 
method is summed up in the one pregnant 
word iXcyxeiv, to convince of wrong or error. 2 
" And when He shall have come, He will con- 
vince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment. " 3 The nouns stand in the Greek 
without the article, and hence are to be taken 
in their large and general significance. The 

1 Whether or not it be His office to teach the facts of 
history, I do not presume to say. But I wholly agree with 
Godet's claim that it is His office to reveal the meaning of 
the facts of history, which without the Spirit would be only 
a frigid narrative incapable of creating or sustaining life. 
Cf. Godet, Gospel of John, Am. trans., ii. 305. 

2 Cf. Godet, ii. 309. 8 John xvi. 8, Godet's trans. 



160 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

world is to be won, not by compulsion put 
on outward freedom, but by the institution 
of deep heart-sear chings. Every revelation of 
truth is to necessitate a breaking up and a 
remoulding of men's thought upon these great 
realities, with Christ's thought upon them as 
the norm toward which each reorganization is 
to effect a closer approach. 

It is further to be noted that the instru- 
ments which the Spirit will use in applying 
this method to a scheme of world-conquest 
are men made in the image of God. "He 
shall show you the way," Jesus says in effect, 
"and you shall point it out to others. ' He shall 
take of mine and announce it unto you,' but 
only that you may in turn pass it on to those 
about you whose need to-day is what yours 
was yesterday." Not by the unutterable groan- 
in gs of nature ; not by cataclysmic force ; but 
by wise, gracious, and loving influence of re- 
deemed lives inspired by sanctifying power, 
shall the Spirit do His work ; and the army 
of men thus redeemed, thus inspired, thus at 
work for the fulfillment of the Spirit's pur- 
pose, shall be the Church. 

The candid reader of the Epistles can 
scarcely escape the conclusion that their au- 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 161 

thors were conscious of a divine presence in 
the world ready to do for the individual be- 
liever and for the Church what Christ might 
have been expected to do could He have 
remained in bodily form with the disciples. 
Neither St. Paul nor St. John enters upon any 
elaborate attempt at definition. They were, 
generally speaking, writing letters instead 
of treatises upon systematic theology. Their 
theory of Christianity's dynamic is implicit 
rather than explicit ; and any modern doctrine 
that should found itself upon nothing more 
coherent than scattered proof-texts clipped 
from their writings must remain more or less 
a thing of shreds and patches. Professor 
Sanday and Mr. Headlam have pointed out 
with great discrimination the fact that there is a 
difference in the doctrine of the two Apostles 
corresponding to a difference in their experi- 
ences. Out of the intimacy of his personal 
fellowship with Jesus, St. John thinks of the 
Spirit as " another Paracelete." St. Paul, who 
had enjoyed no such knowledge of his Master 
in the flesh, but who knew Him at first hand 
in the spirit, is wont to refer to the work of the 
Spirit as a continuation of the work of Christ 
without any break except the corporeal disap- 



162 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

pearance of the worker, or any change except 
the change of growth and necessary adaptation 
to new environment. 1 The phenomenon of 
Pentecost is to be regarded not so much as 
the beginning of the Spirit's presence in the 
Church as the beginning of His recognized 
headship and authority. 2 Pentecost brought 
light and power. The light not only illumined 
the future, but interpreted the past. It should 
never be forgotten that our picture of the life 
of Jesus is not the picture that the Twelve 
saw in the days of their pilgrimage with Him, 
so much as it is the representation of His life 
and words as the Apostles saw them in the 
light of Pentecost's illumination. The signifi- 
cance of miracle, parable, personal rejection, 
and sacrifice all waited for the Spirit's reve- 
lation. Yet this revelation was intended to do 
more than confirm and guide the individual 
believer. From Pentecost the conviction arose 
and grew that the work of the Spirit had a cor- 
porate as well as an individual end. He was 
to be the inspirer and leader not merely of the 
disciples, but of the Church. 

It is interesting to watch the growth of this 

1 Cf. Sanday-Headlam, Romans, pp. 200, 201. 

2 Cf. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, pp. 49, 50. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 163 

conviction in the writings of St. Paul. In the 
earlier Epistles the presence of the Spirit is 
set forth as of eminent worth to the personal 
life of the believer, endowing it with gifts 
and graces and guiding it in the discernment 
between true and spurious charismata. In the 
middle section there is a far greater tendency 
to deal with the Spirit's nature and His fun- 
damental relation to men. Here we discern 
Paul's growing consciousness that the Spirit 
is, and is to be, regnant in the whole dis- 
pensation, the first chapters of whose earthly 
history he and his fellow disciples were then 
making and recording. He is the great pur- 
veyor of grace to men. Wherever He walks 
the earth, faith, hope, and love spring up 
to mark His steps. He will take up His abode 
with men if they will have Him, and He will 
consecrate their very bodies to holy ends and 
uses. The man who walks in the Spirit shall 
show the fruits of the Spirit. These shall 
be of such a sort as to make him tolerant 
of his fellows and tolerable to them, thus 
introducing a heavenly comity into earthly 
social life. The Spirit dwelling in a man shall 
establish a certain identity between the human 
and the divine. The man thus inspired shall 



164 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

understand as by instinct the things of God. 
He shall love his fellows and order his life 
according to a heavenly rule. Hence the poor 
and unlearned, when really imbued and inspired 
with the Holy Spirit, shall be able to perceive 
and effectively witness to matters which seem 
insoluble or absurd mysteries to the wise and 
great. 1 

It becomes evident, then, that the indwelling 
of the Spirit as viewed from the standpoint 
of the Epistles is eminently social in its re- 
sults. This conviction seems to have possessed 
St. Paul in an increasing measure as time 
went on. It is deepest in the later Epistles. 
The Church is become more than a few groups 
of individuals of similar belief and experi- 
ence. It is a new society establishing itself 
in the midst of an old and moribund civili- 
zation. Its destiny is nothing less than the 
ushering in of a new heaven and a new earth 
wherein righteousness shall dwell. The writer 
of 2 Peter looked for the dawn of this new 
day amid cosmic revolution and cataclysm. 
Paul looked for cosmic revolution too ; but 
the real secret of the new society lay beyond 

1 1 Cor. xi. Cf. Matheson, Spiritual Development of St. 
Paul, pp. 179 sqq. 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 165 

all this. The ideal of the Church as a compre- 
hensive and eternally vital organization seems 
to have been ever with him in the later days 
of his apostleship. The union of believers in 
the bonds of peace is to be the result of the 
Spirit's indwelling. 1 Individual grace has now 
a more distinct and definite corporate pur- 
pose than ever; 2 and significantly enough, it 
is in the light of this corporate purpose, this 
new social consciousness, that St. Paul writes 
of the graces of individual Christian character 
with the most eminent felicity, freshness, and 
power. 3 

We see, then, that the place accorded to 
a doctrine of the Spirit in both Old and New 
Testaments is at once larger and more vital 
than students of the Bible have commonly 
realized. " The Spirit "has always been an 
expression for some form of the divine im- 
manence. The writer who used it has always 
represented God as immediately present in 
human life and the world of common affairs, 
imparting skill to the workman's fingers, wis- 
dom to the statesman's judgment, or eloquence 

1 Ephesians iv. 3. 2 Ephesians iv. 7-12. 

3 Cf. Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, art. " Holy Spirit," 
ii. 410. 



166 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and cogency to the prophet's plea. This nor- 
mal self-revelation of God is overshadowed 
rather than interrupted by the special revela- 
tion through Jesus Christ, — but only mo- 
mentarily, and as it were for the purpose of 
a better understanding of normal methods. 
So God is represented as speaking to Moses 
face to face upon the mountain, that Moses 
might have greater assurance and intelli- 
gence in interpreting the more commonplace 
relations of the camp and plain ; and Jesus 
takes his chosen companions to a summit 
of transfiguration, that long afterward the 
Spirit's teaching about His life and death 
might have more significance and power. 
Pentecost marked the recurrence to an old 
and normal order of revelation quite as truly 
as the establishment of any new order. It 
did mark a new era, however, because from 
this time on some men were to see that God 
was in His world, — executive in it, — capable 
of immediate perception by every intelligent 
being, — capable, indeed, of something like 
assimilation by every spiritually clairvoyant 
soul. The Spirit in the world was to be the 
inspirer and director of every honest search 
after truth and every attempt to translate it 



THE WITNESS OF SCRIPTURE 167 

into goodness, in both individual and social 
life. 

In the next chapter we shall inquire as to 
the measure of recognition which the Chris- 
tian Church has seen fit to accord to this im- 
plicit revelation of Scripture. 



VIII 

THE WITNESS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH 

When, under the influence of the new sci- 
ence of Comparative Keligion, what may be 
called the Natural History of Keligion comes 
to be written, we may expect to find that all 
highly developed religions pass through a 
common struggle between institution and 
principle, body and soul, system and spirit. 
This is equally true of philosophies, which as 
soon as they are reduced to systems need to 
be improved upon, broken up, and revived. 
It is no less the experience of governments, 
which never find written constitutions per- 
manently adequate to the reconciliation of 
their principles with their circumstances. 
The Parisian bookseller who answered the 
inquiry for a copy of the French Constitution 
with the statement that he did not keep peri- 
odical literature uttered words of truth and 
soberness. All written constitutions must be 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 169 

instruments of periodic reissue or amend- 
ment, unless they are to become instruments 
of tyranny. 

An instructive historical parallel might be 
drawn between the history of Christianity 
and the history of the Platonic philosophy in 
this respect. Both passed through a period 
when asceticism and enthusiasm threatened to 
become the dominant note of the Christian 
and the Platonist, though neither the founder 
of the religion nor the father of the philo- 
sophy was an ascetic or an enthusiast. 1 The 
Christian Church was scarcely chartered and 
established before it found itself involved in 
this inevitable struggle. The vital and fruit- 
ful period of the old dispensation had come 
to an end with the passing of the prophets. 
The critical question for Christianity was 
whether or not the prophetic spirit and office 
were to be revived and retained. St. Paul 
had recognized the prophet as worthy of all 
honor, and in the famous treatise upon spir- 
itual gifts in his first letter to the Corinthians, 

1 Cf. the suggestive rather than authoritative essay on 
Plotinus in Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, i. 83. Also 
the more systematic treatment of his relations both to Plato- 
nism and Christian Mysticism in Inge, Christian Mysticism, 
pp. 91-99. 



170 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

had given him a place next to that of the 
Apostles. As the Church developed institu- 
tionally, the prophet remained the free man in 
it. His authority was immediate rather than 
derivative. In the Didache (10) the prophet 
is designated as the proper person to conduct 
public worship, and the only person who may 
offer thanksgiving in such words as seem to 
him to be fit, and without recourse to litur- 
gical forms. 1 It was to be expected that 
this would open the way for occasional ex- 
travagance and error. St. Paul accordingly 
reminds the Corinthians in monitory phrase 
that God is the author of peace rather than 
of confusion, and that the true prophet is 
always master of such measure of the Spirit 
as is intrusted to him; 2 but he was too 
shrewd and wise not to see even in the occa- 
sional outbreaks of mantic frenzy the hyper- 
trophy of a real power placed at the disposal 
of the Church. 

The power was too immediate and genu- 
inely vital, however, to admit of easy regu- 
lation. Hence, as the institutional growth of 

1 Cf. Gwatkin, art. "Prophet in the New Testament," 
in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible. 

2 1 Cor. xiv. 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 171 

the Church advanced, the prophet became 
a thorn in the< side of every organizer. The 
Church had a great work to do. Thorough 
organization, strict discipline, a clear recogni- 
tion of the metes, bounds, and responsibili- 
ties of every office, seemed to be indispensable 
to its accomplishment. Thus in the realm of 
belief fixed creedal forms were of value, that 
it might be determined whether a man be- 
longed to the household of faith or not. The 
Church saw its mission in the possible con- 
quest of the world for Christ. It saw the 
model of organization in the Empire. It pro- 
ceeded to gird itself for the struggle by all 
the methods known to wise and prudent men 
in whom the spirit of leadership was mov- 
ing. The end determined the means. A vast 
institution, with its hierarchies, its creeds, its 
revelation contained in a sacred book, began 
to take definite and permanent form. It 
was admirably adapted to its work of con- 
quest ; admirably adapted to grow — but to 
grow as an institution by a process of half- 
mechanical accretion rather than to develop 
according to the law of an endless life. This 
development was not to be foregone; but 
it was to be accomplished with struggle and 



172 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

difficult bursting of institutional bonds — the 
age-old conflict between the orthodox and 
the heretic. 

A chief place among the protagonists in 
this great drama must be accorded to the 
Montanist. Fanatic though he was and narrow 
too, as most fanatics are, still his shrill voice 
testified to one truth that was vital and per- 
manent. His programme was in many respects 
negative and hostile to true development ; but 
there was one positive element in it which 
goes far to atone for all the negations. The 
Montanist steadfastly maintained that the 
circle of revelation was by no means complete; 
that the sum of revelation was not yet cast 
up ; and that the avenues of revelation were 
not yet closed. God's Spirit yet strove with 
man ; spoke to him immediately ; guided his 
endeavor, if he were willing to be led ; and 
made each year of the Church's life richer in 
knowledge than the last. It will be said in 
reply that the Montanist was an ascetic and 
an enthusiast ; that he had grotesquely literal 
notions with reference to the " end of the 
age " and the approaching reappearance of 
the Lord ; that he threw common sense to the 
winds in wooing martyrdom, and did despite 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 173 

to Christian charity in his treatment of those 
who, under stress of persecution, had re- 
canted. All this is true, and it is further 
to be alleged against him that even his exalta- 
tion of prophecy was vitiated by his reversal 
of St. Paul's dictum, and that he thought of 
the prophet as subject to the Spirit in a degree 
that practically suppressed his own personal- 
ity. 1 Yet after all is said, the Montanist her- 
etic bore manful testimony to the rights of 
the individual as opposed to the authority 
of the Church ; and to the continuity of revela- 
tion as an experience of every man whose life 
is open to the Spirit's voice. The Montanist 
himself had his day, passed, and is remem- 
bered only as a name ; but by way of Tertul- 
lian his influence told upon Christendom. 

It is interesting to note that the man who 
gave to the Church the formula of apostolic 
succession should himself have laid stress upon 
an apologetic method which could afford to 
leave it entirely out of account. But when at 
his best, — for no man was ever subject to 
greater vicissitude of spiritual experience, — 
the impetuous Carthaginian defended more 
significant things than apostolic succession. 

1 Cf. Allen, Christian Institutions, pp. 99-105. 



174 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Unlike the earlier Montanists, he accepted the 
Church's organization. He was, however, in 
no way reconciled to the claim of the organized 
and visible Church to an exclusive revelation. 
There was danger lest the Church should ac- 
cept the doctrine that Heaven, open once for 
the impartation of truth, was closed again ; 
and that truth itself was a deposit to be kept 
intact and pure. Against such belittling— 
for belittling it would eventually prove to be 
— of the Church, the Bible, and the Christian 
experience, Tertullian strove. Nor did he strive 
altogether in vain. The Church reckoned with 
him, and with the Montanists through him, 
as she often reckons with those whom she con- 
demns. While repudiating the heretic, she not 
infrequently accepts the gist of his heresy, 
translated into her own terms. Thus, ever since 
the day of Gnostic and Montanist, the possi- 
bility of continued and immediate revelation 
of the truth to men by the Spirit through a 
multitude of varied avenues has been implicit 
in the Church's doctrine. The periods in 
which it has been recognized and acted upon 
have been times of unrest, doubt, struggle? 
bitterness, but none the less times of growth. 
As Professor Allen has recently and eloquently 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 175 

put it, " The obscure prophet of Phrygia 1 had 
raised the eternal question of the ages. On 
the one hand, administration and order, the 
well-being of the Church in its collective ca- 
pacity, the sacred book, the oral voice of the 
Master, the touch of the vanished hand, the 
perpetuation as of a bodily presence, some 
physical chain, as it were, which should bind 
the generations together, so that they should 
continue visibly and tangibly to hand on the 
truth and the life from man to man ; and 
on the other hand, the freedom of the Spirit, 
and the open heaven of revelation, individual 
opportunity for the fullest development and 
expression, the transcendental vision, as with 
St. Paul, who declares that 6 though we have 
known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth 
know we Him no more/ the vision by which 
each soul may see Christ for himself through 
direct and immediate communion with the 
Spirit of God, that Spirit whose testimony 
within the soul is the supreme authority and 
ground of certitude, who takes of the things 
of Christ and reveals them to men with fresh 
power and new conviction, who can at any 
moment authorize initiations of change and 

1 Montanus. 



176 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

progress, which yet do not and cannot break 
the succession of a continuous life of the Spirit 
in the churches, — such were the terms of the 
real issue between Catholicism and Montanism, 
which still wait, after eighteen centuries, for 
some larger or final adjustment.' ' 1 

To revive this issue in every age that bade 
fair to forget its existence, and to settle down 
into contentment with the institutional and 
conventional, has been the office of the long 
and noble line of Christian Mystics. The in- 
tensely practical and busy day in which we live 
seems little likely to find any place for, or to 
show any sympathy with, the mystic. Nearly 
half a century ago Vaughan pointed out — not 
without some signs of satisfaction — that 
Britain had been poor in mystics. As " Ath- 
erton " puts it : — 

" Our island would be but a spare contrib- 
utor to a general exhibition of mystics. The 
British cloister has not one great mystical 
saint to show. Mysticism did not, with us, 
prepare the way for the Reformation. John 
WicklifPe and John Tauler are a striking con- 
trast in this respect. In the time of the Black 

1 Allen, Christian Institutions, p. 103. The whole chapter 
on " The Ministry in the Second Century " is of distinct value. 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 177 

Death, the Flagellants could make no way 
with us. Whether coming as gloomy super- 
stition, as hysterical fervour, or as pantheistic 
speculation, mysticism has found our soil a 
thankless one." * Yet this is but a partial and 
rather shallow generalization. It is true only 
from the standpoint of one who thinks of the 
mystic as always standing apart from the com- 
mon affairs of life wrapt in his vision. The 
great mystics have indeed seen visions and 
dreamed dreams ; but ecstasy has been merely 
the occasional experience of the occasional 
individual. The great and mightily influen- 
tial rank and file have been quiet, industrious, 
charitable, and sincerely pious folk, who did 
their daily work in the light of God's glory 
shining upon them from the face of Christ, 
and in the comfort of God's will interpreted 
immediately to their hearts by the voice of 
the Spirit. 

There is contrast, as " Atherton " con- 
tends, between Wickliffe and Tauler ; but it 
is incidental rather than essential, circumstan- 
tial rather than fundamental. Wickliffe was 
almost as real a mystic as Tauler, but less of 
a quietist. The notion that the mystic must 

1 Hours with the Mystics, ii. 253. 



178 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

needs be odd and grotesque in order to sub- 
stantiate his claim to membership in the 
brotherhood is a mischievous one. The out- 
standing mystics have borne testimony to 
strange experiences and walked in unconven- 
tional paths, it is true ; but even in their cases 
there has been such a tendency on the part of 
their biographers to emphasize, if not to ex- 
aggerate, this side of their lives that tradition 
has become miserably warped and distorted. 
We should probably find a woman of strong 
good sense and hearty good humor, as well 
as of extraordinary executive ability, if we 
could pierce the veil of legend that hides as 
well as canonizes St. Teresa. The practical 
efficiency of Madame Guyon is as far beyond 
question as her personal charm. The some- 
what dim figures of Eckhart and Tauler are 
majestic rather than grotesque. Mo linos and 
Fenelon were at home among courtiers in the 
Vatican and at Versailles. The eccentricities 
of George Fox have been remembered, while 
the very practical means which he employed 
to relieve the misery of those who were in jail 
with him, and to provide for the necessities 
of the poor, have been forgotten. Bunyan's 
illapse of transient terror while bell-ringing or 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 179 

playing tip-cat has obscured his native shrewd- 
ness, his quaint humor, his years of peaceful 
and devoted industry, in such degree as to 
make him seem abnormal and half repulsive 
to many a reader of his life who might well 
have rejoiced in acquaintance with the man 
himself — typical Englishman as he really 
was, after all is said. 

In an imaginary letter to Flaccus, Plotinus 
is represented as contending that knowledge 
has three degrees — opinion, science, and illu- 
mination. The means of opinion is sense ; of 
science, dialectic ; and of illumination, intu- 
ition, which is defined as absolute knowledge 
founded on the identity of the mind knowing 
with the object known. 1 

It is not to be supposed that this intuition 
is necessarily independent of sense and science. 
The intuitive stage may properly enough be 
reached by way of these prior stages. It is 
the stage upon which the mind not merely 
perceives and reasons, but identifies itself with 
the material of experience. Christ seems to 
have had something of this sort in His mind 
when He uttered some of the more daring 
and startling sayings about the identity which 

1 Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, i. 86, 87. 



180 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

might exist between Himself and His disci- 
ples. " Whoso eateth my flesh, and drink- 
eth my blood, hath eternal life." 1 " So he 
that eateth me, even he shall live by me." 2 

The words have been justified in the ex- 
perience of religion. Christianity has always 
found some lives to whose general sense of 
good it has appealed; but they have gone 
no further than to approve it in a nerveless 
and complexionless fashion. Others have seen 
in it that which promised to advantage them 
in such measure that they have been moved 
to contend for it. They regard faith as a 
source of comfort in grief, or of assurance in 
prospect of death, or of physical and mental 
serenity — a good policy, for life. Multitudes 
doubtless accept faith upon these terms. It 
is a perfectly reasonable course and beyond 
carping criticism. But the fact remains that 
religious influence reaches its highest poten- 
tial only in the man who feeds upon his faith. 
He thinks less of the demands which religion 
is likely to make upon him, or of the benefits 
which he is likely to reap from it — but he 
ponders more upon its intrinsic necessity to 
him. It is for him. He would be lost with- 

1 John vi. 54. 2 John vi. 57. 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 181 

out it. The object of his faith is not so much 
an entity apart from himself, beckoning or 
commanding, as a Spirit with whose essence 
his own is becoming identified. 

Within this sense of immediateness are the 
hidings of the Mystic's power. As Professor 
Seth put it, " God ceases to be an object 
and becomes an experience." * All great re- 
ligions as distinct from merely ecclesiastical 
revivals have borne witness to the reality of 
this distinction, and to the power which the 
"experience of God" confers. This power 
has shown itself to be strikingly independent 
of ecclesiastical circumstance. The real Dy- 
namic of Christianity has once and again 
proven itself to be a thing springing so directly 
out of spiritual experience that everything else 
can be treated with relative contempt. 

The Reformation and Counter-Reformation 
afford a case in point. Both were great reli- 
gious movements designed for diverse ends. 
Both were religiously powerful in proportion 
as they realized anew this experience of God. 
Luther's interpretation of the Epistle to the 
Romans was really an emphatic statement of 
the fact that salvation consisted in nothing 

1 Cf. Inge, Christian Mysticism, Appendix A, p. 339. 



182 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

less or else than this union of God and man 
in the experience of faith. Man did not lose 
his identity, to be sure. Yet the bond which 
faith established was organic rather than 
artificial or mechanical. The man justified 
by faith was regraf ted upon the divine stock ; 
rearticulated as a branch to the vine, so that 
one life current energized the whole organism. 
The Reformation was fundamentally nothing 
less than an assertion of the freedom and dig- 
nity that are man's prerogative because a 
Spirit of Wisdom, Light, and Power — which 
is none other than the Spirit of God Himself 
— waits to take up His abode not merely 
with him but in him, so soon as by the act of 
faith he shall be reunited to the divine. This 
freedom was not merely a right of private 
judgment in the interpretation of Scripture. 
Beginning the assertion of itself in the matter 
of Scripture, it was bound to go further until 
it claimed all regions of thought and conduct 
for its province. This meant antinomianism 
in some quarters. But sporadic anarchy is one 
of the prices which, upon the present level of 
human imperfection, we must pay for epidemic 
freedom. Germany's freedom of thought, the 
scope and daring of her scientific specula- 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 183 

tion, her rationalism as well as her profound 
piety, are children of one family, — some nat- 
ural, some legitimate, but all of Reformation 
blood. 

The Counter-Reformation had two objects, 
or at least wrought two results. One was to 
restore the states, the influence, the revenues, 
and the prestige which Rome had lost. The 
other was to bring back a better life to the 
Church itself ; for the Reformation, so far 
as Rome herself was concerned, issued in revi- 
val as truly as in schism. The fact that this 
Counter-Reformation consented to use the In- 
quisition as an ally, and that the rise of the 
Jesuits synchronized with it, should not blind 
us to the fact that it was in a real sense a re- 
vival of piety. Spiritual force was developed 
during this period in Seville and Toledo as 
well as in Wittenberg and Geneva. Persecu- 
tion had its way to a lamentable degree. One 
cannot but wonder what Spain might have 
become, could the legitimate fruits of the cul- 
ture of Salamanca and Alcala have ripened 
and come to the harvest. That was not to be. 
The " Index Expurgatorius " dealt out equal 
intolerance to the work of the Arab Aver- 
roes, the German Eckhart, and the leaders of 



184 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Spain's own contemporary thought like Louis 
de Leon. 1 It was the privilege of the Inquisi- 
tion to debase and deform spiritual life j but 
it could not kill or altogether repress it ; and 
among the strongest witnesses to the power 
which the life of the Spirit is bound to exert, 
even when dealing with obdurate material 
and forced into grotesque and half repulsive 
forms of expression, stand the lives of St. 
Teresa and St. Juan of the Cross. There is 
a curious coincidence between certain expres- 
sions of St. Teresa concerning belief in Christ 
as the only ground of salvation, and Luther's 
statement of his great thesis of Justification. 2 
But, interesting as the attempt might be, it 
is no part of my purpose to expound the doc- 
trine of these famous Spaniards. I cite them 
as examples of the fact that leadership in 
the paths of effective piety was vouchsafed to 
Romanists as really as to Protestants, though 
I believe in less degree during that particular 
century. 

The power of the Church — and here I do 
not mean temporal dominion, but a genuine 
and legitimate spiritual authority — was mea- 

1 Cf. Inge, Christian Mysticism, pp. 216 sqq. 

2 Inge, op. cit., p. 222. 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 185 

sured less by the complexion of the dominant 
dogma, than by the degree in which believers 
had experience of a spirit which seemed to be 
the medium of their inclusion with the divine. 
This experience might become exaggerated 
and distorted in their description of it; it 
might be very soberly and simply portrayed ; 
widely different means might be recommended 
to others as likely to be instrumental in intro- 
ducing them to the same saving grace or know- 
ledge. All these things were of relatively 
minor import. The thing that gave authority 
to the Church — Romanist, Lutheran, Re- 
formed — was the fact that in her some men 
found, and other men perceived that they 
found, an experience which proved to be a 
practical salvation. It was an experience which 
can be described only as an illapse of a spirit, 
not their own, which brought them into unity 
with the source of life and goodness. 

As though to remind us that the Dynamic 
of Christianity is divinely impartial in the use 
of its instruments and loves to confound little 
men by an inclusiveness which they can neither 
understand nor stomach, we are permitted to 
see this same phenomenon in the Evangelical 
Revival of the eighteenth and the Tractarian 



186 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

movement of the nineteenth century in Eng- 
gland. More delightful essays in Ecclesiastical 
Biography than those contained in Sir James 
Stephen's second volume bearing that title 
may have been written ; and sprightlier ones 
than those in which Mr. Augustine Birrell ex- 
ercises his nimble wit upon the Protestant Re- 
formation, Cardinal Newman, and the Chris- 
tian Evidences, — but I venture to doubt 
whether they have been published. Both these 
accomplished laymen, the one in the best style 
of the Edinburgh Reviewers, the other in the 
less impressive though more scintillant manner 
of the later English journalism, — studying 
anything with Mr. Birrell is a little like view- 
ing a landscape by the light of rockets and 
Roman candles, — have borne witness to the 
profound and lasting interest exerted by reli- 
gious revival. It seems to be one of the things 
that men can never let alone for very long. 
They must hark back to it, if for no other 
purpose than to explain to themselves, and 
incidentally to others, that it is not, after all, 
very significant. In saying this, I do not for 
a moment imply that Sir James Stephen and 
Mr. Birrell are to be numbered among those 
who affirm by means of the pains they take 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 187 

to deny. The " Evangelical Succession " and 
" The Clapham Sect " are tributes of honest 
respect and affection. The essays of Mr. Bir- 
rell upon religious leaders and movements are 
as reverent and affectionate as circumstances 
will permit them to be. Both bear witness, 
however, to the fact that in the revival under 
Wesley, Whitefield, and their successors, and 
in the counter-revival under Keble and New- 
man, something came to pass for which mere 
superficial circumstance fails to account. We 
have but half told the story, when we have 
described the parsonage of Samuel Wesley 
at Ep worth and the remarkable family that it 
sheltered; or the inn at Gloucester, and the 
train of events inaugurated by Whitefield's 
birth there. As we go on to the formation of 
the Methodist society at Oxford, the meeting 
with the Moravians on the voyage to Amer- 
ica, even to the innumerable marchings and 
countermarchings of the Great Itinerant over 
England, the preaching to the Kingsbridge 
colliers, the stupendous labors as author, 
editor, translator, organizer, and all the rest 
of it, we are still conscious that we are in the 
region of circumstance rather than of essence. 
What we behold is, after all, to use Mr. Brier- 



188 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ly's suggestive phrase, but a " deposit of the 
Unseen." * The end of the Evangelical Re- 
vival was little less than social revolution, as 
we trace it in the work of men like Wilber- 
force and Shaftesbury. The means do not 
seem to account for it. 2 

The same condition fronts us as we examine 
the so-called Oxford Movement, which bore to 
the Evangelical Revival a relation comparable 
to that connecting the Counter-Reformation 
with the Reformation proper. It was a move- 
ment in reaction ; but it was also a movement 
in advance. It damned the heretic and the 
schismatic; but it caught something of his 
fervor, and it did not altogether disdain his 
methods. A wave of mediae valism swept over 
Oxford. There was an awakening of interest 
in Church history ; in the world-old question 
of the sources of authority; in hagiology; in 
the Church itself as an institution ; in the 
significance, and especially the material ad- 
juncts and instruments, of worship. In short, 
it was a revival of ecclesiastical romanticism. 
The leaders were men of singular charm, — 

1 J. Brierly, Studies of the Soul. 

2 Note also the repeated references to Wesley in Sir 
George O. Trevelyan's American Revolution, pt. ii. 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 189 

the charm that almost always results when 
great simplicity of life and manner and great 
willingness to serve the poor and humble are 
joined to great intellectual subtilty and a 
high degree of intellectual cultivation. It is 
safe to predict for Newman a long vogue. 
Tract XC may die, — is, I suppose, dead, — 
but as Mr. Birr ell has said, it is almost the 
only bit of its author's writing which we do 
not, upon thinking of, wish to sit down with 
and re-read. 1 

Yet it is hard to account for this vogue 
upon any coldly rational basis. Newman's 
dialectic is almost preternaturally trenchant 
and agile. The reader rejoices in him as in 
a sleight-of-hand performer whose processes 
seem to be as simple and legitimate as his re- 
sults are amazing, — but he is a sleight-of- 
hand performer still. The man of judicial 
temper knows that the platform on which he 
stands, and the apparently simple though 
really complex paraphernalia which he brought 
in with him at the beginning of the perform- 
ance, are genuinely significant features of it 
all. The whole thing is implicit in them. 
With Newman the premisses are everything, 

1 Res Judicata, Am. ed., p. 151. 



190 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and none probably knew better than he, that 
the touch of a German scholar's little finger 
would endanger his whole theological scheme. 
Yet this is not to imply that Newman was 
guilty of chicane. He was the exponent of a 
genuine revival. He was genuinely possessed 
of its spirit. With genuine singleness of 
heart he sought its ends. The " Apologia " 
is a true Pilgrim's Progress, scarcely less fas- 
cinating than Bunyan's and to be treated with 
kindred respect. It would be wrong to say of 
the men whom he led to Rome that they were 
perverts of his dialectic juggling, although 
some of them doubtless fancied themselves to 
be. The majority of them were honest con- 
verts to the reawakened religious spirit which 
burned with so unmistakable a flame in New- 
man's life. This spirit was genuine, and be- 
yond the cavil of any but a bigot. The ques- 
tion may fairly be raised whether Hurrell 
Froude — to cite the case of one of the most 
brilliant, enthusiastic, and short-lived of the 
Tractarians — did not effect as much for the 
cause of religious progress by his brief and 
erratic display of half-misguided energy, as 
he could have done had he dawdled for two 
or three score years over the walnuts and port 



THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 191 

of an Oxford common room, keeping a more 
rational faith as a deposit, but never adven- 
turing anything in its behalf. The Oxford 
Movement and its ritualistic appendix must 
be judged in the light not merely of its irra- 
tional foundations and its innumerable acces- 
sory absurdities, but of its devotion to high, 
if not the highest, ideals, its practical piety, 
and its work among the poor. 

If space sufficed, it would be interesting to 
continue the discussion of these rea wakenings 
of the religious sense, especially as they have 
been manifested in what are technically called 
" revivals " or " missions " in Protestant and 
Romanist churches alike. The great awaken- 
ing of the eighteenth century in New Eng- 
land, the revival period of the later fifties in 
the nineteenth century, the extraordinary in- 
fluence exerted through such men as Moody, 
Drummond, and a host of humble co-workers, 
as the century drew toward its close, are all 
phenomena of extraordinary scientific inter- 
est. Such revivals bear every sign of being 
ssecular, and so bound to recur. They speak 
of a Power resident among men, and influen- 
cing them daily and ordinarily. They speak 
further of a purpose and endeavor on the part 



192 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of this Power not to rest in the ordinary, but 
to reach out after complete dominion. This 
dominion is established by quiet and imper- 
ceptible degrees in part. It is no less truly 
advanced by great and sudden conquests. Its 
victories are won often by seemingly crude and 
imperfect means. They are accompanied by 
conflict with its attendant pains and penalties. 
Dust and confusion sometimes hide the result. 
Men not infrequently mistake the incident for 
the essence, the circumstance for the end, in 
estimating the effects of such religious re- 
awakenings. Yet upon the whole, the history 
of the Christian Church would seem to show 
it to be under the influence of — perhaps it 
would be more exact to say the crude and im- 
perfect instrument of — a Power which moves 
upon bodies of men as a will makes its pre- 
sence felt upon subordinate wills — not dis- 
daining their utterance of its behests, because 
the behests are sometimes misunderstood and 
always inadequately interpreted, nor the ser- 
vice of their hands, because the things the 
hands build are made of wood, hay, and stub- 
ble, as well as of silver and gold. The day will 
declare the quality of the structure, and the 
Spirit is patient. 



IX 

THE WITNESS OF INDIVIDUAL 
EXPERIENCE 

In the last chapter we discussed the evidence 
which the history of organized Christianity 
affords to the existence of some Power or 
Force resident among men, and working con- 
sistently and patiently through their crude 
religious societies; disdaining none of them, 
as it would seem, though naturally finding 
some relatively efficient and others almost 
hopelessly impracticable. In this chapter we 
propose to discuss the testimony of individ- 
ual experience to the existence and imma- 
nence of this same Power. 

A high degree of significance attaches to 
the interest aroused by the recent attempts 
of the so-called " new psychologists " to deal 
with religious phenomena, especially with 
the phenomena of conversion. Many of these 
attempts have been crude to the point of 
absurdity. None of them has been really 



194 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

adequate and satisfying. The method of the 
questionnaire, with its invitation to introspec- 
tion, and its premium upon the testimony of 
exaggerated self -consciousness, has been ludi- 
crously overworked. There has been a dis- 
tinct tendency, too, to estimate experience 
in terms of the extraordinary and abnormal. 
This is perhaps the chief criticism to be 
made upon Professor James's " Varieties of 
Religious Experience." It is true that he an- 
ticipates it in his preface, admitting that he 
has "loaded his lectures with concrete exam- 
ples," and that he has " chosen these among 
the extremer expressions of the religious tem- 
perament." No one who reads to the end of 
his lectures — and most who begin are fain 
to go on to the last page — would think of 
accusing their author of intentionally cari- 
caturing any phase of religious experience. 
Yet in point of fact, the impression which 
they leave is that most of these particular 
experiences have been arranged for inspec- 
tion by being reft from their proper environ- 
ment, or made abnormally significant by the 
introduction of elements really foreign to 
them. It is as legitimate as it is convenient, 
when examining the structure of a slice of 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 195 

tissue under the microscope, to throw its 
minute conduits into high relief by filling 
them with coloring matter. But the color 
which is so essential to the picture is none the 
less foreign to the structure of the tissue, 
and is bound to mislead the student if not 
duly allowed for. Now the souls which lend 
themselves best to the purposes of the psy- 
chologist's syllabus are almost always those 
whose experiences are more or less colored by 
neurotic temperament, or sentimental habit, 
or an exaggerated self-esteem. These acces- 
sories by no means invalidate the reality of 
their religious experience, but they do influ- 
ence it, and hence are liable to mislead the 
casual student into fancying that the abnor- 
mal color is native to the experience, and 
one of the notes of it. 

Yet the abnormal has significance ; and 
where its exceptional character is due to the 
quantity rather than the quality of the expe- 
rience, — to its intensity or range rather than 
to its complexion, — the significance often 
possesses very great and immediate value. In 
reviewing the testimony presented in such 
volumes as Professor Starbuek's "Psychology 
of Religion/' or Professor James's " Varieties 



196 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of Keligious Experience," one is impressed 
anew with the truth of Schelling's theory of 
the Iliad and the Odyssey of the human 
spirit. " The spirit has its Iliad, its tale of 
struggle with brutal and natural forces, and 
then its Odyssey, when out of its painful 
wanderings it returns to the Infinite." 1 It is 
well said. The hidings of Homer's power lie 
in the fact that headstrong Achilles with his 
sulkiness, his courage, his prowess in the 
field, and world-faring Odysseus, 7ro\vrpo7ro^ 
kcu 7ro\vfA7)TL<;, are congenial to our expe- 
rience. No one can recall the pages of Au- 
gustine's "Confessions," or Bunyan's "Grace 
Abounding," without a glad recognition of 
their genuine epic quality. Indeed, the aver- 
age reader may very well go further. The 
most casual review of his own experience 
will possibly convince him that his spiritual 
struggles and the wanderings through which 
he went before finding the place in the world 
meant to be his home have been as really 
epic. The range and scope of them seem 
universal, although the physical man himself 
may very likely always have walked a nar- 

1 Cf . Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, 
p. 212. 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 197 

row round ; for it sometimes chances that the 
soul which makes its nominal dwelling-place 
in a home-staying body is the widest and 
most adventurous traveler. One of the reasons 
why clergymen who really hold and use the 
" cure of souls " often care so little for the 
theatre is that the tinsel and pinchbeck of its 
melodrama seem cheap and childish beside 
the genuine comedy and tragedy in the ex- 
perience of human hearts. Farce accords well 
with the stage and justifies itself; but serious 
acting seems thin and inadequate, making its 
appeal primarily to the man of small imagina- 
tion, who is content to rest in the form and 
appearance of things. 

It is interesting, and I think significant, 
to note here the parallelism between this 
experience of the human soul and Hegel's 
philosophy of the Trinity. In his thought of 
it, the doctrine of the Trinity was neither an 
invention of schoolmen, nor a dogma of the 
Church, nor an esoteric mystery whose terms 
are partially and miraculously revealed in 
Scripture, but a form under which the divine 
must exist and be perceived by men. This 
existence is known to us first as pure Being 
or Thought. Out of this Being is eternally 



198 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

generated the object of His thought. It is 
the Word wherein the Father utters himself, 
— of one substance with Him, — begotten, 
not made. But the Word cannot live apart 
from Him, — the differentiation is not a sepa- 
ration, — the particular is never to be set in 
opposition to the universal. Hence, in the 
eternal reconciliation which takes place, in 
the continuous and necessary return of the 
Son to the Father, in the retranslation of 
the Word into the divine Thought, we are 
face to face with the movement of the Spirit. 
This vast Iliad-Odyssey cycle is a universal 
experience. All true life of necessity — and 
the higher the life the more cogent the ne- 
cessity — passes through its great ssecular 
experiences of birth, consciousness of indi- 
vidual and hence partial existence, and return 
into complete union with its source again. 
So far forth, the deeper experience of religion 
which involves conversion in the technical 
sense is normal and to be expected. This does 
not necessarily mean that the development 
of spiritual self-consciousness and the process 
of conversion must be attended with pain ; 
it certainly does not mean that it must be at- 
tended with excitement. But men being what 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 199 

they are, it is morally certain that both anx- 
iety and excitement will occasionally appear ; 
precisely as pain and fear too often prove to 
be the accessories of physical parturition. 1 

Yet however grotesque the forms which the 
phenomenon of conversion may sometimes 
assume, and however inadequate the scientific 
attempts to investigate it may be, the 
reality of the phenomenon itself is beyond 
dispute. It has been so many times dissipated 
as a dream of overwrought imaginations only 
to insist again upon recognition, that the 
effort to get rid of it has grown wearisome. 
It has thriven upon persecution ; it has re- 
fused to yield to ridicule ; it has held its own 
against skepticism ; it has even survived in- 
difference and contempt. It is to be reckoned 
with by every honest student of religious 

1 Miss Frances Power Cobbe will not be suspected of over- 
much complaisance toward conventional religious experience. 
Yet in this connection the reader will recall her lines : — 

" God draws a cloud over each gleaming morn, 
Would you know why ? 
It is because all noblest things are born 
In agony. 

" Only upon a Cross of pain and woe 
God's Son must lie ; 
Each soul redeemed from sin and death must know 
Its Calvary." 



200 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

phenomena; and it has its message to the 
seeker after the Dynamic of Christianity. 

What this significance is may he discerned 
by considering a few more or less typical in- 
stances of conversion. The first which I cite 
is that of Henry Alline, the Nova Scotian 
evangelist, whose experience is related at 
length by Professor James. 1 Alline seems to 
have been a youth of distinctly estimable life, 
and a leader among his fellows in the enter- 
prises of their simple and rather rude society. 
Fond of games and dancing, he was quickly 
susceptible to the presence and opinions of 
his friends, although, as sometimes happens 
with persons of neurotic temperament, the 
susceptibility was superficial rather than fun- 
damental. He was influenced to temporary 
accord in matters of conduct, rather than to 
a like way of thinking or to a like scheme of 
life. It was into the midst of this apparently 
gay and thoughtless existence that conviction 
of sin forced its way. Melancholy came with 
it. Like most men of natural strength of 
character and keen self-consciousness, Alline 
strove long and hard to hide the anguish of 
his soul behind an untroubled front. He 

1 Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 159, 173, sqq. 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 201 

went his usual ways, led his fellows in their 
wonted merriment, — taking care apparently 
that it should always be innocent, — and kept, 
as he says, his " round of duties/' But he 
knew no peace. He could scarcely find sur- 
cease of agony. " Still, all that I did or could 
do, conscience would roar night and day." 
The crisis came on the 26th of March, 1775, 
and it was as momentous and real in the 
sphere of individual experience as the date of 
Lexington or Bunker Hill in the annals of 
national history. It had been a day of thrice 
accentuated pain. Alline had come in from 
wandering in the fields and lamenting his 
miserable estate, when his eye lighted upon 
Psalm xxxviii. in a torn Bible which lay upon 
a chair near by. " It took hold of me," he 
says, " with such power that it seemed to go 
through my whole soul." After a little, joy 
took the place of sorrow, and peace — if a joy 
which rose to ecstasy can be said to give 
peace — succeeded to anxiety. The question 
was settled forever. There was never again 
any slightest doubt as to Whose he was or 
Whom he served. 

Those who are interested and expert in 
nervous pathology will mark the chronology 



202 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of Alline's experience, — the profound depres- 
sion at sunset, the hyperesthesia of the later 
evening, and the fear lest, after sleeping, the 
depression would return. The sequence is 
normal and doubtless significant ; but it ex- 
plains nothing. Had his case been merely 
subjective and his experience naught but 
the unrest produced by overwrought nerves, 
we should expect either collapse, or a return 
of depression, or a slow and gradual recovery 
of tone. Nothing of the sort seems to have 
occurred. Alline went through a crisis of the 
soul as real and definite as any crisis in fever, 
and through much sorrow entered into joy. 
The scientific observer is almost compelled, 
however sorely against his will, to have recourse 
to the stated religious phrases. Here was a 
return home after long wandering. It was a 
new birth into a world so large that the old 
world became relatively insignificant. The 
experience bore to the man who passed 
through it, and it bears to the candid student 
of it, all the marks of the definite influence of 
one personality upon another. 

I cite a second case, differing in some respects 
from the above, which fell under my own 
observation. It was that of a boy born into a 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 203 

well-ordered Christian home. His training was 
consonant with the best American traditions. 
The home life was frugal, busy, and highly 
intelligent. Books and papers were abundant, 
and the greater news of the day was discussed, 
but both reading and talk maintained a pretty 
clear distinction between the temporary and 
the permanent. Although the family resources 
were not so large but that strict economy 
was practiced and taught, the best available 
school and university advantages were put at 
the disposal of the children. Eegular attend- 
ance upon Church and Sunday-school was 
enjoined, yet in such a manner as to make 
the boy feel that the injunction flowed from 
the conviction rather than the whim or the pre- 
judice of his parents. It was distinctly repre- 
sented to him that possession of the whole 
world would prove to be of small moment to 
the man who traded the life of his soul for it ; 
and that the truest culture of the soul depended 
upon personal allegiance to Jesus Christ. The 
whole trend of the family influence went to 
prove life to be an immensely solemn, but in 
no sense whatever a sombre thing. It became 
sombre only when some element of dishonor 
in its relation to God or man was invited into 



204 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

it. Much was made of the cleanliness of mind, 
speech, person, and blood, to which a hearty 
outdoor life of work and play ministers ; and, 
as in so many families where religion sweetens 
the temper and whets the sense of proportion, 
the intercourse of the home was lightened 
by the play of a very keen and abundant 
humor. 

It was in the midst of this busy, wholesome, 
and singularly unfettered life that this boy 
(as I have heard him say) grew into the con- 
sciousness of his soul. It would be difficult to 
enumerate the steps whereby he realized his 
own individuality, and at the same time real- 
ized the necessity of identifying himself with 
the universal. " Lost " is distinctly the word 
to be used in any attempt to describe his 
situation. It connotes nothing Dantesque, 
but rather the deep concern and the keen 
restlessness of a child astray and uncertain of 
ability to regain his home. The way of his 
duty was not altogether obscure, but it was a 
serious question whether he could bring him- 
self to take it, involving as such a course 
threatened to do some slight measure of pub- 
licity. The Church stood before him as repre- 
senting the Family of Believers. He knew 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 205 

himself to be a believer. The battle was 
fought over the question as to whether or not 
he would join the Family. He has said that 
he sometimes discussed the question aloud 
"with himself/' as the phrase commonly goes, 
but really with a Presence which was not quite 
himself objectified, until at last he decided 
upon his course of action, joined the Church 
upon a day when it seemed as though the con- 
centrated gaze of men and angels must needs 
shrivel his small soul, — and entered into 
peace. 1 It would be going too far to say that 
this peace always continued unbroken. There 
was occasional inward conflict over minor 
matters consequent upon the main decision, 
and there was one great intellectual struggle 
years afterward which marked the life and 
enriched the experience, but there was never 
any real questioning of allegiance. The later 
struggles bore to the former a relation like 
that of the War of 1812 and the Eebellion 
to the War of Independence. The Revolu- 
tion ushered in a new national life ; the later 
wars were activities of this new life which 

1 The writer hopes it to be needless to say that this expe- 
rience is given with the full, albeit hesitant, consent of his 
friend. 



206 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

only developed and confirmed it. There was 
something of proven worth to fight for; as 
Odysseus after his return had to oust the suit- 
ors, but found his arm strengthened for the 
conflict by a new realization of his home's 
value and essential soundness. 

Still another variant of this experience is 
found in the case of a friend of the late Dr. 
R. W. Dale, of Birmingham. Of exemplary 
life, and reverent in his attitude toward re- 
ligion, although not counting himself or 
counted by others to be a " religious " man, 
his " call " came upon a quiet Sunday after- 
noon, as he lay in the sunlight upon a 
high down overlooking the sea. No word 
but " call " seems equal to the experience. 
Through the summer stillness, and express- 
ing its message in terms of peace and beauty, 
a Voice searched his heart. It was in some 
sort consonant with Wordsworth's voice of 
the sea : — 

" Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 
And doth with his eternal motion make 
A sound like thunder — everlastingly." 

Yet it was a gentler and a more compelling 
voice. It woke a soul and made a revela- 
tion. The man in a real sense found God 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 207 

that day, turned toward Him, and entered 
into a sacred fellowship which gave new sig- 
nificance to life. 

It would be easy to multiply instances, and 
to cite among them startling revolutions of 
thought and conduct. Professor James some- 
where says that reasons should be given why 
men do pray rather than why they should 
pray. Prayer is a phenomenon worth study. 
So is conversion, whether it be sudden, vio- 
lent, and easily objectified in all its stages, or 
so gentle and gradual as scarcely to admit of 
isolation and analysis. I have chosen to cite 
instances of the quieter and more clearly 
rational sort. Fundamentally, however, they 
differ but little from the revivalistic and (to 
use Professor James's unpleasant word) orgi- 
astic type. In them all appears the conscious- 
ness of self as somehow distinct from the 
universal, and yet belonging to the uni- 
versal. An appeal is made to the soul to 
return to its source and home, not by means 
of surrender of individuality, but by such a 
yielding of the will as shall establish perma- 
nent and complete harmony. The individual 
is to belong to and share in the life of the 
universal as the branch is identified with and 



208 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

shares the life of the vine. This appeal may 
be voiced in terms as widely different as the 
thunders of the law and the invitations of 
grace ; but it is never impersonal. It comes 
from a personal source. It makes direct ap- 
peal as from a person to a person. Not infre- 
quently the soul in its perplexity or hesitation 
argues with " itself " aloud. Yet the argu- 
ment is not really with itself. The protago- 
nist in these dramas is a Person distinct from 
the hesitant and f earful, or perhaps obstinate, 
self. Not merely a power but a Person, not 
ourselves, making for righteousness is felt to 
be dealing with us. Nor does He merely 
come in from without as an external influ- 
ence. In the most normal cases He appears 
as a universal Person resident within. It is 
in the abnormal nature, in which the imma- 
nent forces are but half-recognized and devel- 
oped, or have been starved, that there is grave 
conflict as with a power trying to force the 
conquest of life's citadel. 1 

I pass on now to note another phenomenon 
of the spiritual life scarcely less significant 
than the phenomenon of conversion. Some 

1 Cf. C. C. Everett's essay on "Mysticism," in Immortal- 
ity and Other Essays, pp. 70-74. 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 209 

years ago the writer chanced to be present at 
a religious service presided over by a man of 
blameless character and somewhat rare spirit- 
ual insight. Most of those whom he addressed 
were clergymen. The theme with which he 
set himself to deal was the consecration of 
Christian life. His scheme of religious ex- 
perience appeared to be something as fol- 
lows. A man was to expect conversion at 
some period, and ought, if the conversion 
were normal, to be able to designate the 
time of it. This enrolled him as a Christian. 
Beyond this there lay a Pentecostal oppor- 
tunity. Its relation to the former experience 
was like the special illapse of the Spirit 
upon the Apostles, as compared with the 
original call which Jesus extended to them 
when they first became disciples. This was 
the " Second Blessing," or the " Baptism for 
Service." It might be, indeed it ought to be, 
as distinct and definite an experience as con- 
version. The notes of it were the incoming 
of new light, the baptism with new power, 
and the perfect assurance of acceptance. It 
was implied — though the speaker was him- 
self a notably humble and simple man — that 
the experience gave further assurance of a 



210 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

freedom from the power of sin that ap- 
proached, if it did not attain to immunity. 
As his service drew to a close, the leader 
asked all those among his hearers who had 
attained to this experience of " Baptism with 
the Spirit" to manifest it by some sign. 
They were almost without exception devout 
and faithful men. Yet the hoped-for response 
to this invitation came from but one person, 
and he, without invidious distinction, might 
be reckoned among the lighter and less force- 
ful of the company. It is safe to say, how- 
ever, that no one present failed to feel some- 
thing of the significance of the appeal. The 
sincerity and simplicity of the speaker gave 
evidence of an underlying experience which 
was as real as the honesty of the hearers 
who declined to cram their own experiences 
into his formula ; but it was equally certain 
that these men, most of whom were trained 
in the study of spiritual phenomena, declined 
to accept their leader of that day as a guide 
into a universal or general experience. When 
he spoke of a spiritual quickening as at the 
instance of a person lending power and grace 
to human life, he took them with him. This 
was something of which they knew. But 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 211 

when he attempted to treat this influence as 
external to normal Christian life, coming 
down from above, and leading the will cap- 
tive until the subject of this " Second Bless- 
ing " became a mere puppet in the Spirit's 
hands, they balked. 

In doing so they represented the better 
sense of the Christian Church in every age. 
Religion of the most spiritual type is suspi- 
cious of hierarchies of experience. The Spirit 
has no inner circle of votaries. He is imma- 
nent in the world and in the life of man. All 
genuine life is due to His effort to express His 
presence and to accomplish His will — not 
from without but from within. In this attempt 
He daily wrestles with obdurate material. 
This material is sometimes so obdurate that 
the Spirit finds Himself incapable under pre- 
sent conditions of subduing it. It will not 
lend itself to the expression of divine truth in 
terms of goodness, or respond to revelation in 
terms of love. This is the case of the " hard- 
hearted" man — the man who will not yield. 
Sometimes he never yields. Sometimes the 
obduracy is broken down by the shock of 
catastrophe, sometimes it is softened in the 
fires of affliction, until it lends itself to the 



212 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

formative influences of this indwelling Power. 
Here we have the case of marked and perhaps 
spectacular conversion. 

Again, as in the case of Alline, it is pos- 
sible to establish a category of conversions 
which are painful to the subject, but not 
revolutionary in the eye of the world. The 
struggle here is of a sort that might very 
well be borne easily by a coarser nature ; but 
the material with which the Spirit deals is of 
a fine and sensitive texture. It responds 
quickly to what other men would call slight 
stimulus. It vibrates long. The man is so 
highly organized that he is immediately and 
sometimes painfully conscious of spiritual ap- 
peals to which his fellows are blind and deaf ; 
very much as the receiver of a Marconi in- 
strument is keenly alive to influences to which 
everything else around is entirely obdurate. 
Alline was like a man who is conscious that 
his eye has capacity to see the rays beyond 
the violet, but who dreads to open it to the 
new revelation, or to develop the new power, 
lest the well-known actinic properties of these 
rays should somehow mark and change him. 
The battle is fought out, — the new capacity 
insists upon recognition and exercise, — the 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 213 

natural, conservative elements in the nature 
resist, but finally yield, and at once the man 
takes on power and enters into relative peace. 
He takes on power because he sees now where 
other men are blind. He finds peace because 
he discovers the new region of experience to 
be one which fits his capacities. He has en- 
tered into the environment to which he is 
adapted, that is to say, he lives in the scien- 
tific sense of the word. He is the convicter 
and inspirer of other men in so far as he 
leads them to seek a higher environment to 
which their own latent powers will develop 
adaptability. He may of course sometimes 
partially misinterpret the message which has 
changed his own life. He will certainly do so, 
if he systematically disparage the simpler and 
more commonplace revelations of ordinary 
duty. Few men, however, who pass through 
a great experience of conversion ever do this. 
They realize that the plain is as necessary as 
the mountain to a wide field of vision. The 
more frequent danger is that they may sepa- 
rate the two regions unduly, and attempt to 
differentiate the principle of life which culti- 
vates the plain from that which inspires the 
vision of the mountain-top. 



214 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Hence the latter two of my three examples 
of conversion will generally be accepted as 
the more normal. In the case of the boy, al- 
legiance to the higher life of which he had 
grown conscious seemed to demand specific 
and definite action. His general training had 
been of so wholesome and devout a sort that 
no revolutionary experience was demanded of 
him. He was invited rather to take the con- 
sequences of the attainment of his spiritual 
majority. In the case of Dr. Dale's friend, 
the call was couched in very much the same 
terms ; except that with him life had become 
settled. It was a well-ordered and, upon the 
whole, practically devout life. He was simply 
asked to recognize and own the divine source 
of it. 

It may well be asked whether such cases 
as these, and the ten thousand variants upon 
them which might easily be cited, will submit 
themselves to the rule of the evolutionary 
hypothesis. Does their process accord with 
the scheme of development ? The question is 
a perfectly fair one and should be welcomed. 

In the first place, few of those who have 
studied psychical phenomena without preju- 
dice will venture to deny that conversion of 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 215 

the genuine and thorough sort is a step in 
development. It generally marks a deepening 
and enrichment of experience, and an increase 
of power. The converted man, however hum- 
ble and restricted in cultivation, means, and 
knowledge of the world, is a larger man by- 
reason of his genuine " experience of reli- 
gion." Moreover, this development, where it 
is genuine, is due to a resident, or, as I should 
much prefer to say, immanent force. The 
governing influence is not an external power 
mechanically applied, but one whose seat 
seems rather to be within. As has been noted 
before, the man's struggle is commonly said 
to be "with himself." Yet it is as when 
Jacob struggled with the angel, who repre- 
sented divine life and truth translated not 
only into human, but into Jacobean terms. 
Jacob's wrestling was with the personification 
of his own conscience — the not-himself in 
himself, which made for righteousness. So 
the struggle of which converted men often 
speak is with something more than mere ob- 
jectified self. They have met and striven with 
the divine principle resident or immanent in 
self. 

Moreover, the development which takes 



216 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

place under the influence of this power in the 
phenomenon of conversion is from incoher- 
ence to coherence. Conversion normally makes 
for the integration of life in the individual 
and in society. It is a return of the son who 
wanders to his place in the home. It is a 
restoration of the lost sheep to its orderly 
position in the flock. It is a gathering of 
the disjointed and heterogeneous individuals 
who live selfishly and perhaps in strife, into 
a family where they shall feel toward one 
another as brethren. These are stereotyped 
terms ; but they accord so well with expe- 
rience as to survive the process. They be- 
come common without ceasing to be sacred, 
which is good proof that they express a 
truth that is vital — how vital appears only 
when we set the picture teaching of Jesus 
beside the polysyllabic definition of Spen- 
cer, 1 and observe that the definition of life 
wrought out by the philosopher seems but a 

1 In saying, this I am not unmindful of the limitations 
of the Spencerian definition of Evolution and the extreme 
vagueness of some of its terms. Since the present chapter 
was written, we have been again reminded of this by Pro- 
fessor James's exceedingly clever, albeit somewhat cavalier, 
review of Spencer's Autobiography in the Atlantic Monthly 
for July, 1904. By " integration " I mean the development 
(or reestablishment) of organic unity. 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 217 

translation of the idea which lay at the centre 
of Christ's teaching. Jesus distinctly taught 
that life in the Kingdom of God was life de- 
veloped from fragmentariness to unity under 
the impulse of a force resident or immanent 
among men ; and that, moreover, this life 
should bear the note of eternity because of its 
power to adapt itself to environment. It was 
the life fitted to dominate and feed upon cir- 
cumstance instead of being subdued to circum- 
stance's whim. It could distinguish between 
accident and essence, moulding itself to the 
divinely essential, and in turn moulding the 
merely accidental. 

One of the fundamental doctrines taught 
by the founder of Christianity was the pre- 
sence of the Spirit. The divine Essence was 
with men, making personal revelation of Him- 
self to their understandings, and personal ap- 
peal to their hearts and wills. This divine 
life in the heart of a man and in the heart of 
society was not in any sense alien to the prin- 
ciple of lif e which appears in what we call the 
physical or material universe. The Power 
which works in the processes of nature, or ex- 
presses its thought in terms which we formu- 
late into the theorems of geometry or the well- 



21$ THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

attested laws of physics, is fundamentally 
One. The resident or immanent Force which 
moves in the evolutionary process, and forms 
the central element in our definitions of Evolu- 
tion, is identical with the Power not ourselves, 
making for righteousness, which students of 
the phenomena of conduct are ohliged to as- 
sume. We are driven to ascribe to this Power 
certain attributes which are personal. Now 
when we come to the experience of the de- 
veloping human soul, we find ourselves in 
immediate touch with a Power which we 
know to be personal in precisely the same 
way in which we recognize personality in the 
men and women about us. We do not need 
to clothe a bare idea in a suit of attributes 
in order to know a man when we meet him. 
Like in us speaks to like in him, and the 
knowledge is immediate. So with the Ultimate 
Force or the Universal Life with Whom our 
souls have to do. We deal with Him as with 
a person, by an instinct so quick and compel- 
ling as to make the processes of logic seem 
slow and cumbrous. These processes of logic 
are not ruled out. Any region whither they 
cannot come is likely to prove an unwhole- 
some residence for men's souls. But they are 



THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 219 

here as guests rather than as servants. Like 
sappers and miners parading a well-paved 
city street, they are honorable and necessary 
folk ; but not likely to be pressed into ser- 
vice, because the way is so clear that no trav- 
eler can well err in it. 

This Dynamic of Christianity in the indi- 
vidual life is the Spirit of God. He is known 
by those who have had deepest spiritual expe- 
rience as essentially a Person, however varied 
may be their attempts at definition. He is a 
resident or immanent Force. His residence 
makes for development. Under His influence 
the individual at his best and highest feels 
that he is at once more and less than an 
individual. The man realizes himself to be 
a member of another — he comes out from 
God. 1 The Spirit's residence also tends toward 
universal harmony. Under His influence in- 
dividuals are led to perceive their mutual 
relations and to fulfill their social duties. 
They adapt themselves to the needs of the 
common life. They tend under His continued 
guidance to perceive the ultimate unities of a 
real universe. They know at last that the 

1 C. C. Everett, Immortality and Other Essays, pp. 62 sqq. 



220 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Ultimate Force of the philosopher, and the 
resident force of the physicist and biologist, 
and the immanent Spirit of the theologian, 
are but different names, representing differ- 
ent glimpses, of one God. 



X 

THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 

When Christianity appeared and began to 
claim the allegiance of men, it held out two 
definite promises to them. One was the pro- 
mise of freedom; the other the promise of 
peace. Jesus told . His disciples that they 
should know the truth, and the truth should 
make them free. He compared their freedom 
to that which a loyal son enjoys in his father's 
house, where he is not bound by petty rules 
or ordinances, but is recognized as an heir 
and prospective owner, who has right and 
claim to the reasonable use of the resources and 
opportunities of the home. Moreover, when 
Jesus pronounced His benediction upon those 
who were to carry on His work, it took the 
highly significant form of the salaam — the 
ascription of peace. If the heritage which He 
was leaving to them meant anything, it was 
that they had no longer cause to fear circum- 
stance. Their hearts were no longer to be 



222 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

troubled. They were never again to be afraid. 
They were not of the world, and the world 
could harm none but its own. Beyond the 
world they had no cause to fear, because 
the mansions of the Father's house awaited 
them. 

It is to be noted, however, that this freedom 
was not to be conferred upon the disciples as 
a deposit which they could hoard up and draw 
upon. They were not to be taken out of the 
world or isolated from the play of human 
vicissitude. Their freedom and their peace 
were to come through the possession of the 
truth; and into the truth the Spirit was to 
lead them. He was to take up His home in 
them, abide permanently with them, speak 
through their lips, and work by means of 
their hands ; but in particular He was to en- 
due them with adequacy to circumstance. 
The disciple's freedom and peace were to be 
of the dynamic sort, like the freedom of a well- 
found ship at sea, or the splendid confidence 
of an eagle in the air. Neither is a spoiled 
favorite of nature. The "attraction of gravi- 
tation " stands ready to sink the ship or dash 
the eagle's life out against the earth beneath. 
The storm lifts up its hand against both alike. 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 223 

Yet both are so well fitted to their several ele- 
ments that they translate the threat of gravi- 
tation into terms of stability, and make the 
power of the storm serve them, whether they 
scud before it, or beat up against it to their 
desired haven. 

St. Paul took up the same doctrine and incor- 
porated it into all his greater Epistles. The 
believer was the true freeman. He was deliv- 
ered from the bondage of precept and custom 
that he might live his life according to its real 
nature, moulding its activities to the norm of 
a perfect man. This was not to be by giving 
free play to passion and fleshly desire. To 
give the body free rein was to turn life up- 
side down, to submit to tyranny of the most 
degrading sort, and to invite an internecine 
war in the members. The life which was to 
be free and peaceful must be free from the 
dominion of sin and the fear of death ; that 
is to say, it must possess a resident or imma- 
nent force capable of adapting its activities 
to its circumstances in the interests of harmo- 
nious and consistent existence. It was to go 
on through life and death, things present and 
things to come, subjecting circumstance to 
the synthetic chemistry of the Spirit's touch, 



224 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

which could extract from seemingly base 
things the materials for the nourishment of 
abiding life. This was not necessarily to be 
an easy process; but it was to be so sure a 
process for the man who really opened his 
life to the entrance of the efficient Power as 
to relieve him of fear and to clothe him with 
peace. The presence of the Spirit was not to 
involve such a usurpation of the agencies of 
a man's personality as to render him immune 
against temptation or free from blunders. 
The best material which he could put at the 
Spirit's disposal was likely to remain more or 
less obdurate and intractable ; but there could 
be no question about the ultimate success of 
life unless the man deliberately chose to be a 
traitor. St. Paul felt so great a confidence 
in his own committal of himself to One Who 
held the secret of eternal life, that anxiety 
about the casual incidents of earthly experi- 
ence seemed almost absurd. 

Principal Fairbairn, in criticising the Nicene 
theology, has said that " the Church, when it 
thought of the Father, thought more of the 
First Person in relation to the Second than of 
God in relation to man ; when it thought of 
the Son, it thought more of the Second Per- 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 225 

son in relation to the First than of humanity 
in relation to God." 1 He might have added 
that the Church then and since has failed to 
think of the Spirit at all. Christ's fear, when 
He told the disciples that it was expedient for 
Him to go away lest the Comforter or Helper 
come not, has been in some measure realized. 
Men have been wont to think of the Spirit as 
a divine influence coming into a man's heart 
from a God who dwelt without, or let down 
upon the world from a God who dwelt above, 
— an influence sometimes with men and some- 
times absent, sometimes at work in the world 
and sometimes quiescent or withdrawn. They 
have thought of Him as bringing freedom 
from sin by some cryptic process, and con- 
ferring peace as a sort of spiritual commodity 
to be dealt out to Heaven's favorites. They 
have undertaken to define His " office-work," 
to hedge His path, and straitly mark His 
goings and methods. So technical and stilted 
have been their phrases relative to His pre- 
sence and activity in the world, that the com- 
mon sense of many men has revolted. They 
have come to think of the doctrine of the 
Spirit as out of relation to common life, and 

1 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 91. 



226 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to be handed over as a peculiar possession to 
the revivalist, or to the fanatical followers of 
obscure sects. Men easilv lose vital faith in 
the power which manifests itself solely or 
mainly in extraordinary ways. They really 
believe in the forces which are steadfast, con- 
tinuous, and applicable to the concerns of 
every day and every man " by sun and candle 
light." Hence it was with a deep insight into 
human nature that Jesus economized His mir- 
acle working. Here too has lain the hidings 
of Christianity's power. More than any other 
religion it has shown the necessary interde- 
pendence of faith and good works — religion 
and righteousness. Its central truths have 
always been translatable into common good- 
ness. Its general influences have been ex- 
oteric instead of esoteric ; they have made 
for a community instead of a hierarchy of 
disciples ; they have resolutely refused to be 
cabined or confined within definite organiza- 
tions or statements of faith. They have always 
been restless unless their course were free and 
their opportunity universal. Nowhere has this 
been truer than in the realm of the world's 
thought concerning the Spirit. Nowhere, on 
the other hand, has doctrine been more dis- 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 227 

torted and belittled. Nowhere has it assumed 
more fantastic shapes or subserved such fanatic 
purposes. So far has this gone, that there has 
come to be grave danger lest the teaching 
which Jesus seemed definitely to regard as the 
great doctrine of the future — the doctrine of 
the growth of the Kingdom under the direc- 
tion of the Spirit — should be relegated to the 
limbo of the irrational. 

What has been written in this volume is 
a protest against such a belittling of truth. 
Vital doctrine is truth which is capable not 
only of being seized with rapture by the im- 
agination, but of being apprehended in some 
good degree by the reason and then translated 
into terms of conduct. The doctrine of the 
Spirit is of this sort. In its imperfect form as 
the doctrine of the immanence of God, it has 
long made its appeal to the imagination. It 
has seemed good to men to think of God as near 
at hand and not afar off. But even when they 
have thought of Him as immanent, it has too 
often been the presence of a royal guest in a 
temporary residence which could never be his 
home that they have pictured. " God in His 
world " has represented a divine influence in 
partibus infidelium. There is still an unnat- 



228 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ural separation between the universe and its 
soul. 

The Christian doctrine of the Spirit would 
fain relieve the human reason of this seeming 
contradiction. Great doctrines are great by 
reason of the clearness with which they discern 
and define distinctions, as well as by the co- 
gency with which they resolve apparent con- 
tradictions and coordinate separate realms of 
knowledge and experience by their unifying 
power. No doctrine can hope to solve all mys- 
tery or answer all conceivable queries. That 
doctrine is most vital, and has the best claim 
upon the faith of reasoning men, whose hori- 
zon of mystery incloses the largest area of 
consistency. It is upon this basis that the 
doctrine of the Spirit, as Christ taught it, 
may lay claim to apprehension by man's rea- 
son as well as to the stimulation of his im- 
agination. It makes due distinction between 
what we call "the material universe" and 
God. But it unifies our knowledge by perceiv- 
ing the Spirit to inhabit the universe as an 
immanent and vital Force. He is the soul of 
it. So far from coming to consciousness in 
the personality of man, His own personality 
is the ground and source of all feeling, know- 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 229 

ledge, and will. His presence is discerned by 
the component elements of the universe in 
varying degree. What we rather blindly call 
" dead matter " knows His presence as force. 
Gravitation is God's revelation of His presence 
to a stone. The beasts know His presence so 
far as their experience can translate the so- 
called forces of nature into terms of their 
partial life. Man knows Him not only as force, 
though He is the source of it ; nor as will, 
though all will grounds its power of initiative 
and choice in Him ; but as a Person, exercis- 
ing supreme reason in an orderly realm, and 
exercising it in love, since its object appears 
to be the coordination of all things into a 
real universe ; and love has no higher office 
than the satisfaction of the right desires of 
all living beings by putting them into such 
relations with one another that they shall en- 
joy freedom and be crowned with peace. 

How far short of entering into their her- 
itage here believers often come is suggested 
by the most casual study of the phenomena of 
religious melancholy. Good people who knew 
their faith to be genuine have sometimes 
doubted with an awful seriousness whether it 
were saving faith or not. No one else ques- 



230 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tioned their title to discipleship. But a dread- 
ful cloud of uncertainty as to the validity of 
their " calling and election " shut the sunlight 
from their sky. Different immediate causes 
for such unhappiness appear to govern differ- 
ent cases. Yet the general ground of their 
misfortune would seem to be a view of God 
that made Him practically impersonal. There 
was no question in their minds about His 
power in the universe, and they would have 
been the first to deprecate any denial of His 
reason and His love. But in point of fact He 
was, in their thought of Him, little more than 
the originator and engineer of a divine scheme. 
As interpreted into terms of human experi- 
ence, His will was mechanical. Between the 
heart of God and the need of man there was 
interposed the barrier of a device for saving 
men which wrought with a terrible certainty, 
but with a no less terrible aloofness from the 
circumstances of common human life. Much 
was made of the work of Christ; but here 
too the forms of speech used in its descrip- 
tion were largely impersonal — forensic, if 
not mechanical. There must needs be a set 
and formal procedure on the part of him who 
would avail himself of Christ's sacrifice, and 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 231 

it was possible that through ignorance or mis- 
fortune some man might miss a step in the 
process and so invalidate the whole. Chris- 
tians still sometimes come perilously near 
thinking and speaking of God as a being 
from whom Christ came to deliver them. 

It needs but a re-reading of the Gospels 
to show how far removed this is from any 
teaching that Jesus ever uttered. It was 
impossible that men should come to their in- 
heritance of freedom and peace by any such 
way as this. His thought of conversion and 
the life of Christian service was that men 
were to be the subjects of an experience 
rather than the objects of a process. That 
experience was to be an opening of the soul's 
eyes to God's immediateness, and a yielding 
of the will to the influences of a divine com- 
panionship. The knowledge of God as an 
Holy Spirit was to crown all. God was to be 
known as Creator. That was a necessity of 
reason. He was to be known as translated 
into terms of love, truth, and service in Christ. 
That was a fact of human history. But the 
knowledge of Him as a sacred and satisfying 
Person, daily meeting human needs by em- 
powering and adapting men to their circum- 



232 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

stances in the interests of an eternal life, was 
to be an intimate and vital experience. By 
introducing them into this the Son was to set 
them free. The servant was to become the 
friend, and the faith of the believer to be 
lost in the sight of the companion. 

It is in the light of this truth, shining upon 
our experience of religion and illuminating 
our scientific investigation of religious phe- 
nomena, that the real ground of theological 
progress appears. True science is more than 
logical ; it is biological, taking account of a 
developing rather than a completely developed 
world. A theological system whose watch- 
word is " back to Christ " is both unscientific 
and anti-Christian. The word which Jesus left 
the Church for the guidance of its life was 
not " back to Me," but " on with the Spirit." 
There was nothing in His teaching to justify 
any attempt to cram the life of the second or 
of the twentieth century back into the lan- 
guage or the experience of the first. No forms 
which he established were fixed. Everything 
was elastic. Only certain great vital principles 
were implanted like leaven in the world's 
life. This did not for a moment imply that 
the life of the future was to be disorganized 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 233 

and abnormal. It was most distinctly to sub- 
mit itself to law. But the law was to be the 
law of the immanent Spirit's highly organ- 
ized and endless life rather than the norm of 
an outgrown ordinance or dead formula. 

It remains to point out some of the results 
of this neglected truth when it is realized and 
translated into terms of life. 

1. It makes a man at home in the Present. 
This is not to say that it gives him a sense of 
the sufficiency of the Present to supply all the 
needs of his soul ; but it does deliver him of 
the haunting sense that he is born out of due 
time. No one can read religious poetry, or 
the extensive and always significant literature 
of religious autobiography, without noting 
the degree in which men have looked back 
with pensive regret to some golden " age of 
faith," or on with longing to some millennium. 
This backward aspect is depicted in many 
forms, from the nursery hymn, — 

" I think when I read that sweet story of old," 

to Newman's exquisite, but highly imagina- 
tive picture of mediaeval piety in England, 
beginning, " The fair form of Christianity 
rose up and grew and expanded like a beau- 



234 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tiful pageant from North to South." 1 On 
the other hand, the longing for the future is 
voiced in the great mediaeval hymns, — 

" O mother dear, Jerusalem," 

and 

" The world is very evil, 

The times are waxing late; 
Be sober and keep vigil, 
The Judge is at the gate." 

Indeed, this latter habit of representing the 
present world to be a vale of tears, and our 
experience in it as not merely a probation but 
a dubious and sorry one, has been so frequent 
among hymn writers as seriously to mar some 
of our older hymn books. One suspects resig- 
nation of having achieved an undue eminence 
among the Christian virtues. But it should 
be remembered that this dissatisfaction with 
present circumstance and suspicion of the 
future among confessed believers is as no- 
thing when compared with the lamentations 
of the " agnostics " and the doubters. The 
late Mr. Lecky's 

" How hard to die, how blessed to be dead," 

has been quoted in an earlier chapter. 

1 Quoted at some length by Fisher, History of the Chris- 
tian Church, p. 236. 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 235 

" The pageant of his bleeding heart " which 
Matthew Arnold ascribed to Byron might as 
well be treated as autobiography. He loved 
to think of himself as 

" Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 
The other powerless to be born." 

In thus making his moan, Matthew Arnold 
expressed a mood entirely consonant with re- 
ligious doubt, but it is never natural to faith. 
It is to be noted, however, that the partial 
faith which would rule God out of natural resi- 
dence in His world, and take no account of a 
divine Spirit immanent in man and working 
out His will by slow degrees in a developing 
universe, has often produced an identical 
suspicion of the Present as somehow thrust 
in anomalously between a past whose life is 
dead or dying and a future which no man 
can determine, but which must be anticipated 
with anxiety. 

To all this Christ's doctrine of the Spirit 
is antipathetic. The man who has had ex- 
perience of the world's vital principle at 
work in the development of the universe, and 
most manifestly at work in the development 
of the human soul, will be at home in the 
Present. He will be no shallow proclaimer 



236 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

or exploiter of the present as the best of 
all possible worlds. On the contrary, he 
must believe a better world to be possible 
to-morrow unless the material with which the 
Spirit has to work be so obdurate that the 
pain of its subjection to the new and higher 
purpose prove great enough to hide the fact 
of progress. He will remember that the pro- 
cesses of increase and development are ssecu- 
lar. They observe periods which can be more 
or less clearly discerned. There are spring- 
times of lush growth, midsummers when 
growth halts that maturity may hasten, 
autumns when fruits of development are 
garnered for translation into new forms of 
energy, and winters when all progress seems 
to be suspended — winters of man's discon- 
tent, but which are none the less times of 
especial susceptibility to new impressions. 
The seasons of the Spirit are often long. 
They change so slowly that one man's single 
day shows little progress. But it is only the 
pitiably short-sighted man who will therefore 
deny the progress, or fancy that its verbs 
have no present tense. " God has so arranged 
the chronometry of our spirits that there 
shall be thousands of silent moments between 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 237 

the striking hours." 1 This is the true Oppor- 
tunism of Christianity. By means of the im- 
manence of divine Power a believing man is 
not only made equal to circumstance ; he 
becomes its master ; he feeds upon it, and 
assimilates it. It is this that makes him at 
home in the Present, and reveals the deeper 
significance of the old pagan maxim " Carpe 
diem ; " of the Hebrew half -threat, half- 
promise, "I will feed them with judgment;" 
and of the Christian assurance, " All things 
work together for good to them that love 
God." 

2. This larger and more definite doctrine 
of the Spirit gives a wholesome elasticity to 
Christian institutions. It provides room for 
growth in creeds, worship, sacraments, and 
polity. Now, as a matter of fact, there has 
always been growth and development here ; 
but to those who held to the doctrine of exact 
delimitation of Christian faith by Christ and 
the Apostles, or of an original " deposit of 
faith " in the treasury of the Church, or to the 
establishment of a norm of church govern- 
ment in the first century to which all true 
church organization in later centuries must 

1 Martineau, Tides of the Spirit. 



238 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

conform itself, such development has seemed 
anomalous and puzzling. It is interesting to 
note the unanimity with which ultra-orthodox 
and ultra-heretic have agreed that doctrine 
which has been developed and whose process 
of evolution can be shown is thereby invali- 
dated as authority. Here Romanist and Uni- 
tarian have met together ; Burgon and Huxley 
have kissed each other. Yet it needs only a 
casual reading of the Gospels and Epistles to 
show that such development is implicit in the 
very nature of Christianity. The divine ele- 
ment was to be resident among believing men, 
always at work upon the more or less obdu- 
rate material which they presented, moulding 
their experience of religion into new creedal 
expressions, reorganizing their corporate life 
in the Church, and ever assuring them anew 
of the power of initiative with which, as beings 
made in the image of the Creator, they were 
intrusted. This means that sometimes old 
forms are to pass completely away, as the 
observance of circumcision and the Jewish 
ritual have passed. It also means that quite 
as often old forms will be retained, but that 
they will express a developed and therefore 
varied message. This is particularly true with 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 239 

reference to creeds. Every creed that has ever 
commanded the allegiance of devout and 
earnest men is from that very fact a sacred 
symbol. The Church of England does well to 
retain her Calvinistic Articles, though she 
ought not to require absolute subscription to 
them. She does well to set beside these her 
Arminian liturgy, although again she may go 
too far in requiring the absolute subjection of 
the service of public worship to it. These are 
less contradictory than complementary of one 
another. Their presence in the Prayer Book 
relates the faith of the sons logically and le- 
gitimately to the faith of the fathers ; but it 
ought never to do so in such a way as to imply 
that the faith of the sons is not at liberty to 
profit by the additions and enrichments of 
three and a half centuries of revelation. 

So again with reference to the language 
of the creeds. It has been held that but one 
interpretation could possibly be put upon any 
given phrase in a creed, and that whatsoever 
was more than this savored of dishonesty. 
But it is impossible to confine human speech 
within such fetters. Language will not sub- 
mit to this slavery. Take, for instance, the 
clause in the Apostle's Creed relating to the 



240 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Resurrection of the Body. Upon the wall of 
Wickliffe's old church in Lutterworth there 
is a fresco of the Resurrection in which bones 
are flying through the air to meet their fellows, 
as though Ezekiel's Vision were in process of 
literal fulfillment. It stands for the crude 
literalism of an unscientific day. A scientific 
day ought therefore to discard both the crude 
notion and the form of words which it misin- 
terpreted, some men would say. What, then, 
is a modern believer to do? He holds in- 
stinctively to a faith in a life beyond the grave. 
Proceeding upon his rational and spiritual 
principle that he is under obligation to accept 
the hypothesis whose horizon of mystery 
includes the largest area of consistency, he 
believes that this life is to be of the nature 
of personal existence. I shall still be I, then 
as now. This means that the necessary appara- 
tus and instruments of personal existence and 
some sort of personal efficiency must be sup- 
plied. What these may be, we do not under- 
take or care to define; but they represent 
exactly the office of the body. It is doubtful 
if any form of words could possibly be devised 
which could so cogently express the essence 
of this great hope as those of the Apostle : 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 241 

" We are sown a natural body, we are raised a 
spiritual body." The clause in the Creed, " I 
believe in the Resurrection of the Body," is a 
paraphrase of this. It is patient of several 
interpretations. No doubt the average wor- 
shiper in Lutterworth Church when the fresco 
was fresh upon its walls thought this material- 
istic interpretation of the clause to be the only 
valid one. But is his crude and irrational 
notion to bind all later ages? Let us admit 
that in his day the words meant what the 
picture portrays, and that he would have felt 
himself to be forcing them out of their nor- 
mal use in supposing them to mean anything 
else. The spiritual body of which the Apostle 
speaks might very well mean to him only a 
body of flesh and bones, somehow sanctified 
and made immune against pain, age, and 
death. It is quite as true, however, that to-day, 
among intelligent people, the natural sense of 
the Apostle's words and the Creed's echo of 
them seem to be different. We do not care 
to deny that the clause is patient of the Lut- 
terworth parishioner's interpretation, but we 
should say that it required a large exercise 
of its patience. A better Biblical exegesis and 
a larger acquaintance with the physical frame- 



242 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

work of the universe make a different inter- 
pretation of the words seem to be the natural 
and reasonable one ; and this fact, so far 
from invalidating the clause or proving its 
unworthiness to find place in a great symbol 
of Christian faith, adds rather to its signifi- 
cance. 

It is right that the creed of a spiritual faith 
should be thus elastic and patient of such va- 
riation in the meaning of its terms as increased 
revelation demands ; because a creed is not an 
exact and ultimate definition of knowledge. 
It is an endeavor to voice experience, past, 
present, and to come. It is a statement of a 
hope, or an hypothesis, or a conviction, which 
makes such appeal to the minds, hearts, and 
wills of those who confess it as to induce them 
to accept it as the norm of life, and to attempt 
its translation into terms of conduct. It is by 
no juggling with words that the man of the 
Middle Ages and the man of the twentieth 
century are enabled to confess their faith in 
a future life in the same terms. Both use the 
word "body." Both express the same inex- 
pugnable faith in some conscious and efficient 
life beyond death. The difference in the in- 
terpretation of the words which they employ 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 243 

to utter their religious conviction is no whit 
greater than the difference which would exist 
in their interpretation of the same word 
"body" when used in its ordinary physical 
sense, in view of the progress which the cen- 
turies have brought us in anatomy and physi- 
ology. 

It is into the expectation of such change in 
Christian symbols as this that the true Dy- 
namic of Christianity introduces us. It makes 
us at home in the present theological and 
religious terminology, assuring us that it is 
but an instrument of expression to be used, 
added to, filled fuller of meaning, as under 
the guidance of the resident divine Force in us 
Christian experience expands. One secret of 
the influence of the Kitschlian school in Ger- 
many lies in their recognition of this fact. 
Instead of attempting to treat all theological 
symbols as exercises in technical definition, 
they have endeavored to see beneath the form 
of them the vital experience which they at- 
tempt to portray; and in their preaching 
and teaching they have striven to reinterpret 
its value to the world. This is at once the 
rational and the spiritual method. In the 
process of it some phrases and symbols are 



2M THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

doomed to pass away altogether. They are 
those which are merely formal ; husks, which 
never held a kernel or a germ. Such symbols, 
creeds, and institutions as have expressed ex- 
perience are likely to abide. Some will be 
kept because of their historical significance ; 
but more because they still speak to the heart ; 
and when their terms are reinterpreted in the 
light of later revelation, they prove their power 
to utter the deep things of the Spirit. 

This same freedom to live in the present 
and to adapt Christian activity to its needs is 
conferred upon the Church. Comparatively 
young men can remember when churches of 
different orders made much of the apostolic 
sanction upon their respective forms of organi- 
zation and government. Congregationalists 
sought to prove the autonomy of the individ- 
ual congregation. Presbyterians were instant 
in their claims that the early Church knew, 
loved, and used the elder and the presbyter. 
Episcopalians cherished the apostolic succes- 
sion of their bishops. While Baptists claimed 
the distinction of observing one of the sacra- 
ments as they believed the early Church ob- 
served it. All appealed to the New Testament 
and more or less to the Fathers. All — with 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 245 

the possible exception of the Episcopalians, 
who had perhaps the best case, but spoiled it 
by claiming too much — succeeded in substan- 
tiating a considerable part of their claims. 
Yet in the light of Christ's teaching concern- 
ing the Spirit all are ruled out of court, not 
because the question of Church organization 
is unimportant, but because the first century 
does not claim jurisdiction in the matter. 
Granting the Congregationalisms claim to au- 
tonomy, as proven in the practice of the early 
Church, he is still at liberty to ordain a bishop 
and an archbishop if, in the clearest light 
which the Spirit sheds upon past experience 
and present circumstance, bishops and arch- 
bishops seem best adapted to advance the 
Kingdom of God. The Baptist may go on 
immersing usque ad Tub am, if he please, but 
if he be a true disciple, his practice ought to 
base itself upon present expediency and adap- 
tation to the will of God and the need of men 
to-day, rather than upon mere conformity to 
the first century's fashion. The Episcopalian 
will do well to cherish and reverence his 
bishops just so far as they serve the Spirit's 
need and help the Kingdom's advance. He 
will lay as little stress upon the form of apos- 



246 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tolic succession as may be, for while the fact 
would have a certain historical significance if 
it could be proven, it would carry no ultimate 
authority. Appeal would still lie to the divine 
Presence in the Church as foretold by Jesus, 
but so often forgotten by His disciples. 

3. This Dynamic of Christianity delivers us 
equally from the fear and the pride of Reason 
by exalting it into its true place as a chief 
agent and instrument of the divine Spirit in 
man. I doubt not that some orthodox reader 
of this chapter, if any have been patient and 
venturesome enough to go so far with me, 
will lay the book down in disgust with the 
sweeping verdict that it is nothing but a plea 
for rationalism. On the contrary, it aims to 
set forth a very sure defense and refuge 
from that barren rationalism which sometimes 
tries to identify itself with Christianity, and 
sometimes is its open or secret foe. English 
Deism in the eighteenth century was essen- 
tially rationalistic. New England Calvinism 
passed through stages of experience when it 
was scarcely less so ; and fundamentally, in- 
deed, Calvinism is a rationalistic scheme. Uni- 
tarianism of the higher and dryer type has 
found its effectiveness hampered by the same 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 247 

blight ; while German rationalism was long a 
name wherewith to conjure an evil spell both 
in England and America — not without some 
justification. 

With the theory of rationalism the Chris- 
tian need have no quarrel for reasons to be 
set forth in the concluding chapter upon the 
Harmonies of Revelation. Toward its most 
common practices, however, he is right in main- 
taining a pretty consistently hostile attitude ; 
because with few exceptions, rationalism has 
found its main employment in criticism. It 
has often gone so far as to turn the office of 
Reason completely upside down, giving to the 
criticism of notions the chief place which 
should be reserved for the interpretation of 
experience. By a fine instinct the mass of 
plain, every-day thinkers are sure to discover 
and to revolt against this treatment. The 
typical rationalist is like a too anxious parent, 
who, for fear his child should incur risk of 
infection or over-exertion, feeds him on a 
meagre diet of sterilized food and distilled 
water, while laying an embargo on sun, air, 
and exercise. Unconsciously he exalts the 
bacillus or microbe into a god, and becomes its 
prophet, proclaiming his devil-worship far 



248 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

and wide ; his boy meanwhile growing anae- 
mic and rickety under this negative regime, 
unless he have natural strength enough to 
revolt against it and burst its shackles; in 
which case he is likely to go to the other 
extreme and become intolerant of ordinary 
hygienic precautions. So the rationalist is 
forever probing the natural food upon which 
men have stayed their spiritual hunger for the 
germs of superstition, and urging his fellows 
to abstain from religious work and worship 
until the validity of all they do has been sub- 
mitted to a court of inquiry. The only gospel 
in which he really believes is a writ of quo 
warranto. He exerts his influence, and, let 
it be added, almost always serves his day, 
though in a very partial and negative fashion. 
None the less, his day must be a short one, 
simply because man craves generous suste- 
nance for life, and looks to find it in the kindly 
fruits of the Spirit, while all the rationalist 
has to offer is the sterilized product of his 
syllogistic machine. Men trust their common 
sense and the guidance of ordinary experience 
to purge their faith of casual and incidental 
error, very much as they trust their digestive 
organs to reject and excrete such elements in 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 249 

their generally wholesome food as are ill 
adapted for assimilation. The man who would 
refuse to entertain or act upon a religious 
faith until he was absolutely sure that it had 
been cleansed of every element of error, 
would be as unwise as he who should refuse 
to eat until convinced that every ingredient 
of his food could be at once taken up by the 
body and transformed into tissue. 

Against such folly the voice of the divine 
Eesident in human life has always protested. 
Human Reason is one aspect of that image 
of the divine in man which testifies to his 
sonship. It is a bond of union between 
God and man. It is the means whereby man 
interprets experience and makes revelation 
intelligible. The mind and the heart are twin 
apostles. Like Paul and Apollos, one plants 
and the other waters, but God gives the in- 
crease of knowledge and love. The growth 
in experience toward which the offices of both 
tend, and to which they are practically in- 
dispensable, comes from Him. Neither is an 
infallible agent. Each is set to test the other's 
work. Each is a servant of the Spirit ; or to 
speak more exactly, the activity of Reason 
is but a form or aspect of the activity of 



250 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the resident divine Force, struggling for re- 
union with its source. It is fallible, because 
the human conditions which the Spirit re- 
spects, and the human speech which He 
consents to use, and the human will whose 
autonomy He guards as a sacred thing, are all 
inadequate and partial when measured by the 
task which is set them. Hence it comes to 
pass that the modern sin against the Holy 
Ghost is likely to take two apparently con- 
tradictory forms. He is in danger of com- 
mitting it who contemns Reason as though it 
were in some sense hostile to Revelation, dis- 
trusting its verdicts and banishing it from 
the temple as though at its best estate it 
could approach only so far as some court of 
the Gentiles. On the other hand, he is in 
equal danger who, interpreting Reason to be 
a sort of logic-chopping faculty, yet sets the 
servant above his lord, by making its dogmas 
supreme and bounding all human experience 
by the limits of its sway. Life may be 
maintained for considerable periods within a 
stockade of syllogisms, but it can never be 
adequately nurtured there. Under such con- 
ditions it is likely to be dwarfed on one side 
and abnormally developed on the other. The 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 251 

refusal to test the results of the dialectical 
faculty's activity by Christian experience is 
as narrow and subversive of sound scientific 
doctrine as the refusal to test other revela- 
tions by the verdict of the Reason. The man 
who recognizes the Force resident in human 
life, and speaking through the human Rea- 
son, as one with the Power which reveals 
Himself to the conscience and the heart, 
founds the house of his faith upon the rock, 
where no flood of seeming contradiction is 
ever likely to rob him of his freedom or his 
peace. 

4. It follows from what has just been said 
that such a doctrine of the Dynamic of 
Christianity must rid us of all fear of the 
results of historical or philosophical criticism ; 
nor can the believer in it well be confounded 
by any new discovery in any field of science. 
This fear has always been unworthy, but 
never quite unnatural. The man whose faith 
is comprehended and defined by the limits of 
a system must needs look with apprehension 
upon all criticism of it, and especially upon 
any discovery which may threaten to develop 
facts incompatible with its integrity. But the 
man who is living a life wherein a divine 



252 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Force is resident sees in every new result of 
criticism simply a summons to partial re- 
arrangement of the material of experience, 
and in every new discovery simply a new and 
welcome opportunity. The progress of sci- 
ence, physical, historical, critical, delights and 
animates him. It is a challenge to his love 
of adventure. Even when it has happened — 
as was the case during the latter half of 
the nineteenth century — that the material 
wrought out by investigators and discoverers 
was so great as far to exceed his power to coor- 
dinate it, he suffers from no fear, but simply 
as one embarrassed by the multitude of rather 
crude riches. He realizes, if he be a man of 
genuine spiritual insight, that he is living 
in a season of luxuriant growth, and that a 
period of development and maturity is bound 
to follow it. So far from being fearful of 
the outcome, the soul that feels the Dynamic 
of Eeligion will experience the exhilaration 
of the pioneer looking out upon a newly 
discovered region, which must be explored, 
mapped, and subdued to the use and residence 
of men. 

Face to face with the recent scientific ad- 
vance, and the necessity of answering the 



THE NEW FREEDOM OF FAITH 253 

soul's questions about it, men may very well 
have been smitten into silence for a time. 
None but the man of little faith, however, is 
described in Matthew Arnold's lines : — 

" The kings of modern thought are dumb ; 
Silent they are, though not content, 
And wait to see the future come. 
They have the grief men had of yore, 
But they contend and cry no more." 

The silence of the man of positive faith in the 
Soul of the Universe is of the nobler type 
of Keats : — 

" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men 

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise 
Silent upon a Peak in Darien." 

5. This Dynamic of Christianity confers 
the freedom of faith upon every man who 
faces toward truth and travels sturdily in 
its direction. Here again it ministers to the 
possession of that peace which Christ be- 
queathed to His disciples. A more adequate 
discussion of this corollary of Christ's teach- 
ing concerning the Spirit in the world must 
be referred to the concluding chapter. Let it 
suffice here to say that this is by no means 



254 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to baptize a cheap and trivial doctrine of uni- 
versalism or eclecticism into the name of 
Christ. It is rather to remember the deeper 
significance of Jesus' own attitude toward 
truth. All truth was sacred. It was always 
and everywhere " of God " rather than " of 
the world." The man who sought it with the 
purpose of honestly applying it to life was 
of the class who bring forth fruits meet for 
repentance. He could not deliberately face 
toward the truth in any department of human 
experience without being " led by the Spirit/' 
since to induce men to take that attitude is 
one of the chief offices of God resident in 
His world ; and the man who is led by the 
Spirit is born of God and knoweth God. 



XI 

THE NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 

In the midst of the Peelite troubles of 1852, 
when a change of party names was gravely 
discussed by British politicians in the hope of 
mollifying opponents, confirming waverers, 
and possibly winning recruits, Sir James 
Graham reminded his colleagues of Paley's 
maxim, " that men often change their creed, 
but not so often the name of their sect." * It 
is natural and on the whole commendable 
that men should cling to significant terms 
both in politics and in religion. There is lit- 
tle enough that is sacred in a word ; but as 
the word passes into history it begins to con- 
note experience — and experience is always 
sacred. Hence it comes to pass that language 
almost insensibly changes its significance with 
the march of human progress. A word may 
be said to have two aspects. It appears in one 
light to the man who sees in it a sign of his 

1 Morley, Life of W. E. Gladstone, i. 422. 



256 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

experience ; it may look very different to his 
fellow who regards it as the symbol of a scien- 
tific idea. Take for example the word " sun- 
rise." From time immemorial men have known 
by trial what " sunrise " is. They have looked 
with longing for it through slow night- 
watches ; they have built their plans upon the 
unfailing certainty of its appearance ; more or 
less dimly they have felt its beauty and re- 
sponded to its exhilaration. From the days 
when the Psalmist thanked God for the joy- 
ous outgoings of morning and of evening, 
they have paid unconscious tribute to the prin- 
ciple of the Continuity of Nature whenever 
they have used the phrase. Measured in terms 
of common experience, the content of the word 
has been practically a constant quantity. 

On the other hand, when wise men — how- 
ever crude their wisdom — have undertaken 
to account for the phenomenon and to frame 
its definition, the story of the word has been 
one of perpetual change. In the light of mod- 
ern knowledge ancient theory finds no stand- 
ing-ground. So completely does the planetary 
hypothesis of to-day differ from the Aurora 
myth, that the two may be said to have no- 
thing in common. Yet the plain man feels 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 257 

no embarrassment in using his ancestor's 
phrase. So much of the word's signification 
as lies in the plane of experience defies the 
tooth of time. To the man who would walk 
or work in the light, " sunrise " means just 
what it meant to the pilgrim or the laborer 
of a thousand years ago. 

This is not at all to deny the practical signi- 
ficance of our progress in ideas. It would be 
easy to gather a group of men with cameras 
and spectroscopes and sextants who should be 
living witnesses to the fact that the sun's ap- 
pearance has a meaning in the realm of prac- 
tical experience to-day which is vastly wider 
than of old time. None the less, " sunrise " 
remains as legitimate a term as ever. Such 
change as has passed upon it has simply made 
it richer and more significant. It was born of 
a mistaken notion that the sun climbed the 
arch of heaven on man's behalf. It continues 
with perfect propriety to serve the need of a 
day when man knows that the revolution of 
an insignificant planet is whirling him — an 
insignificant speck upon it — out of shadow 
into light. 

As was intimated in the last chapter, reli- 
gion must take ungrudging account of this 



258 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

fact. Men reproduce experience generation 
after generation. Though the reproduction 
be not exact, it is still real, with reference to 
the things that are fundamental. Each gen- 
eration, however, meets life upon a larger 
field than its predecessors knew, and therefore 
adds something of its own to the heritage be- 
queathed to it. It is further true that vast 
changes take place in the scientific treatment 
of experience. As men ponder upon the phe- 
nomena of it in their endeavor to discover 
its causes and to coordinate its results into sys- 
tems, the hypotheses advanced to account for 
experience must differ, and differ very widely. 
Men will change their theories more readily 
than their terms. They cling to terms be- 
cause these represent recurring experiences ; 
they change their theories because investiga- 
tion into unexplored quarters of their widen- 
ing field of experience presents new facts and 
compels scientific rearrangement of old ones. 
The definition of religious terms may be 
said to be always a theological exercise. If it 
is to be undertaken in a genuinely scientific 
spirit, the facts just set forth must never be 
forgotten. Terms are likely to persist because 
they are the symbols of persisting experience. 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 259 

Definitions are bound to change as time mul- 
tiplies and tests the theories advanced to ac- 
count for experience. Hence it follows that 
definitions have permanent value for what they 
include rather than for what they exclude. 
They must be framed with the expectation of 
an increase of content. They must be regarded 
as marking stages in a process of development. 
Every definition meant to represent the con- 
tent of great and vital realities must be 
provisional. On the other hand, no statement 
of faith which has moulded and formed the 
thought and conduct of men through any 
considerable period is to be treated as void 
of truth. It will almost invariably yield sug- 
gestion to the reverent student. Reverence 
for human experience, be that experience 
never so blind and partial, is a prime requi- 
site to its interpretation. There is something 
in it which will always escape the inquisition 
of merely indifferent curiosity, as surely as 
it will be warped and refracted by passing 
through the medium of uncritical and unctu- 
ous sentiment. The verdict upon the Unita- 
rians, 1 that they have often succeeded in 

1 The reader will remember that the word used by Dr. 
Fairbairn is not " Unitarian " but " Socinian." 



260 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

criticism because they failed in insight, has 
application here. There is need of that fine 
combination of qualities summed up in the 
Scripture phrase "an understanding heart," 
if religious experience is to be rightly inter- 
preted or religious terms intelligibly defined. 
1. There was a time when men seemed satis- 
fied to rest in a definition of God that simply 
deified some process in nature which passed 
their comprehension and of which they found 
themselves the object. They were involved in 
the process, and they worshiped the chief 
apparent factor in it. The recurrence of the 
day and the march of the seasons represented 
such a process. Men naturally worshiped the 
sun, therefore, and built up their sun myths 
about it. They went on to personify their 
objects of worship, because of an ineradica- 
ble instinct which ascribes all processes to 
an ultimate cause possessing the characteris- 
tics of mind and will. Thus the worship of a 
multitude of demiurges grew up. At last the 
notion of monolatry or henotheism, the wor- 
ship of one God, to whom it behooved a people 
to be true through good report and ill, was 
wrought out in the experience of the Hebrews, 
and was developed into a real monotheism by 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 261 

the inspired genius of the prophets. The idea 
of God connoted practically illimitable force. 
The experience of men, however, demanded 
more than this to render their notion of the 
universe rational. So the idea was advanced 
to include the attributes of reason and love. 
The great revelation made by Jesus, into the 
depths of which we have yet made but partial 
way, was that the idea of God can be properly 
expressed in terms of human experience ; but 
that human experience can never compass it 
in such a degree as to deny it further growth 
and development. 

In the light of Jesus' teaching, there is 
no need to shrink from the use of anthropo- 
morphic terms in the attempt to express our 
idea of God. The true definition must be 
big enough to include them, since intelligible 
terms must reflect real human experience. 
The trend of Christian thought has naturally 
been toward a notion of God as the ground of 
all experience ; the source of all thought, will, 
and feeling ; resident in His universe, and 
yet transcending it; working in and through 
man as the most highly developed agent 
that life has revealed. God is the term men 
use for the Fountain of Creative Force, for 



262 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the Source of Authority, and for the per- 
sonal object of supreme affection. It will be 
objected that such an attempt at definition 
lacks the fundamental note of a definition in 
so far as it fails to delimit the idea, and to 
mark bounds beyond which its content may 
not pass. To which the only answer to be 
made is that attempts to define a person always 
have to reckon with the fact that personality 
refuses such delimitation. There are deeps in 
it which pass our finding out unto perfection. 
The definition which deals with a person must 
always have room in it for growth. God, to 
the Christian, has ceased to be a mere object, 
and become an experience. 1 

It will be further objected in some quar- 
ters that such an approach to the true idea of 
God must take undue account of, and accord 
undue importance to, the ethnic religions. 
But it is well-nigh impossible to take undue 
account of the ethnic religions. Enormous im- 
portance attaches to them. Not one among 
them which embodies the genuine experience, 
or has called forth the devoted service of men, 
is ever to be contemned or treated as though 

1 Professor Seth, quoted by Inge, Christian Mysticism, 
p. 339. 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 263 

it had no significance to the Christian. They 
all testify to the truth that we are " incurably 
religious/' and they challenge the Christian 
to a comparison of experience. The Chris- 
tian need not shrink from the contest. He is 
doing no least despite to the claims of Christ 
in frankly admitting that the faith which fits 
life best, by meeting its daily need most di- 
rectly, by uttering its dicta to the reason and 
the will with the greatest and most authorita- 
tive cogency, by offering to the adventurous 
soul of man the largest field of spiritual 
exercise, is the faith which must endure. 

2. When we come to question the Christian 
as to the experience of God which his religion 
has provided, we find three great correspond- 
ences existing between his faith and his life. 
They may be rudely indicated by the follow- 
ing formula : — 

Man in the Making connotes the Father. 
Man in the Marring connotes Christ. 
Man in the Remaking connotes the Spirit. 

The doctrine of the Trinity has survived 
and is vital to-day because it expresses expe- 
rience. Any attempt at a definition of it must 
be made in terms of life. Man as a rational 
being, conscious of himself as the subject of 



264 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

birth and growth, and observant of creation 
as in process about him, is driven to a belief 
in the existence of a Creative Force. The more 
scientific man becomes, in his observation of 
the facts of creation, and the more systematic 
his arrangement of knowledge, the more in- 
evitably is he driven to the conclusion that 
this Creative Force is rational and essentially 
personal, in our ordinary understanding of 
that word. 

Quite as fundamental and general an ex- 
perience as that of the awakening of man's 
scientific curiosity about the Whence and the 
How of the world in which he finds himself 
is his query concerning the Why and the 
Whither of it, and himself in it. Here comes 
in the experience of the marring of his peace. 
He becomes conscious of himself in a new 
sense. He knows himself now to be a person 
in the sense in which Dorner loved to define 
personality, "the ego as self-conscious spirit 
moving toward the fulfillment of its existence." 
With this new and higher realization of self, 
trouble always comes. It never ministers to 
peace at first. That question of fulfillment of 
destiny is always puzzling, and sometimes sad- 
dening. The destiny itself is a mystery, and 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 265 

the way toward its fulfillment seems strewn 
thick with obstacles. The man no sooner be- 
comes conscious of himself than he knows 
his existence by himself to be partial, frag- 
mentary, difficult. His place in the world is 
not commodious enough for his soul. If he 
fit himself to it, and cut all his thoughts and 
deeds by the measure of a possible threescore 
years and ten, he knows he is dwarfing self 
and somehow missing his chance. To use once 
more the hard-worked cant phrase, he is out 
of harmony with his environment. In theo- 
logical language, he is under conviction of 
sin. His life seems marred, and nothing can 
restore its peace except coordination with the 
general scheme of things which he knows as 
the universe, and with the Power which under- 
lies and works through it. 

In Christ, this Power seems to make a new 
revelation to him. In Christ, God advances 
toward him with overtures of peace — with 
promise of at-one-ment. It is easy to state 
this dogmatically; but as a dogma it can 
exert no compulsion on the wills and lives of 
men. The essence of the revelation appears 
in the light of Christian experience. With a 
singular unanimity men who have tried Christ's 



266 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Way of faith, hope, and love have found 
themselves at one with God and His world. 
I do not forget that they have often felt and 
taught that the world was at enmity with God. 
That, however, was the world of the imper- 
fect, the petty, and the partial, which is ever 
arrogating to itself the place of the whole. 
In the larger sense, Christ has brought them 
peace and power as citizens of the Kingdom 
of Heaven — that is, as men upon whom the 
freedom of the universe has been conferred. 

It is in this process of rebirth into the 
larger world — of endowment with a genuine 
adequacy to circumstance, that man comes into 
immediate consciousness of God as a Spirit, 
pervading the universe, immanent in the world, 
and speaking immediately to the soul of the 
man himself. Through God, thus revealed 
as Spirit, revelation becomes an immediate 
and continuous experience. The so-called rev- 
elation of the past- — the word of the Pro- 
phet, the burden of the Book, the dogma of 
the Church — all has significance. Yet this 
is not real, ultimate, essential revelation. It is 
rather the vehicle or channel of it. It is that 
through which the real revelation flows, or if 
one please to change the figure, it is the body 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 267 

of which the real revelation is born when 
quickened by the Spirit's influence. The es- 
sence of the revelation is always delivered in 
the divine Spirit's voice to the human spirit's 
ear. The two are of one nature, and each can 
understand the other. 

3. It is at this point that we find ourselves 
face to face with the necessity of defining sin. 
This must be done with a full recognition of 
the fact that evil is a mystery not yet to be 
compassed and made plain in terms of human 
experience. The mystery does not, however, 
put us to any permanent confusion. It does 
not compel us to any admission of dualism in 
our thought of God. For much that is reck- 
oned to be evil we can find a rational place 
in the universe upon the plane of our present 
knowledge. It would be presumptuous to 
say that we can find room and place for all. 
The problem of evil challenges us to further 
adventure in the realm of thought. Sin, as 
it appears in human life, is specifically and 
definitely known. Like all spiritual experi- 
ences, it transcends the limits of a snug and 
handy definition ; but its fundamental charac- 
teristics may be pointed out. 

Sin is the permission of disorder in the life 



268 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of the spiritual man. It might be said to be 
the state or condition in which a man finds 
himself when the dawn of self-consciousness 
opens the eyes of his soul. He knows himself 
to be an individual, and therefore partial in 
himself. His powers are bound to prove in- 
adequate to circumstance unless he find place 
for his partial life in the system of the whole. 
The question as to whether he will do this, or 
choose to remain in his anarchic individual- 
ism, is the question whether he will live in sin 
or turn out of and away from it. To become 
conscious of his own partial and insufficient 
life is to be convicted of sin. The old phrase 
is marvelously expressive, and remains apt to 
our modern use unless we insist upon making 
it express an artificial sense of guilt. A clear 
sense of guilt may or may not appear in a 
man's conviction of sin. The divine Force 
resident among men rarely fails to bring home 
to the individual man the obligation which 
rests upon him to coordinate the work of 
his reason, his will, and his heart. To see the 
thing that is true by the light of his reason, 
to choose it as the thing to be done, and to 
love it as a thing to be cherished, is to yield 
life to the Spirit's guidance. This is to coor- 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 269 

dinate the different activities in such a degree 
as will permit life's orderly development under 
the influence of its divine resident forces. It 
puts a man's body and physical powers into 
right relations with the physical frame of the 
universe, and his soul into harmony with the 
creative and sustaining Power which animates 
the universe. The man then becomes himself 
a power for universal order and efficiency. 

If, on the other hand, he willfully or care- 
lessly fail in this, he becomes an element of 
disorder looking toward anarchy. In so far 
as he uses his will to choose what his reason 
refuses, or uses his reason narrowly and in 
such domineering fashion as to rule all testi- 
mony of his heart out of court as irrelevant, 
he is refusing to have a partial life made 
whole ; he is choosing a life of sin, and com- 
mitting definite acts of sin. Sin is therefore 
fundamentally a failure to institute and main- 
tain a correspondence between revelation and 
life, — between the truth that is known and 
the thing that is done. 

We have seen that to become convinced of 
the partial and unworthy nature of the life 
lived as though its individual existence for a 
few mortal years were all, is to be convicted 



270 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

of sin. If this realization develop after years 
of careless or willful living, in which oppor- 
tunities have been evidently wasted, the sense 
of guilt often accompanies it, sometimes 
appearing in almost overwhelming and heart- 
breaking measure. If, however, the life have 
been upon the whole well trained and well 
ordered, the sense of guilt is scarcely to be 
expected. But whether it appear or not, the 
conviction of sin is an experience which in 
its essence must have been known to all gen- 
erations of men who have reached the stage 
of a well-developed self-consciousness. The 
vital question in it is, whether it will lead a 
man to the search for, and the acceptance of, 
a rational religion. Will this utterance of the 
Spirit's voice, telling him who he is and what 
he needs, be met by a resolve on his part to 
seek for peace in an ampler revelation ? 

4. The etymology of the word " religion " 
has been in doubt from the days of Cicero. 
He thought of it as possessing fundamental 
relation to the idea of conscientious perform- 
ance. The religious man was the man who gave 
attention to the demands of the gods, going 
over the ground of his duty to them again 
and again, as diligent children might con a 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 271 

lesson. The Fathers, including Augustine, 
derived the word from a root meaning " to 
bind/' and emphasized the idea of obligation. 
Probably they were right so far as the literal 
sense of the root-word goes. There is a ques- 
tion whether they were right in deriving from 
it the obligation idea upon which they put 
such emphasis ; but whether they were right 
or not, the student of to-day, in view of 
human experience in the light of Christian 
revelation, would make a different applica- 
tion of this root idea. He inclines to regard 
religion as the principle which binds the 
elements of life together in such a way as 
to give them coherence and wholeness. It 
is the bond of union with God. It is no 
less the bond of life's own unity. Under the 
influence of religion the disjecta membra of 
experience are coordinated and made efficient. 
Its office may be rudely compared to that of 
the tire, which binds the helpless conglom- 
erate of hub, spokes, and felloe into the effi- 
cient entity of the wheel; or of the hoops, 
which hold the individual staves together 
that the pail or cask may have content. A far 
more significant figure is to be derived, how- 
ever, from the vision of Ezekiel, where the 



272 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

word or breath of the Spirit comes upon the 
heaps of dry and separated bones. At once 
they are articulated, bone to his bone; the 
skeletons thus bound together are clothed 
upon with flesh ; the principle of self-direct- 
ing life is breathed into each man's frame; 
and the men themselves under its influence 
stand up, no mere mass of unrelated indi- 
viduals, but an exceeding great army. Pure 
religion and undefiled is, therefore, that bond 
of perfectness and peace which binds a man's 
life into coherence and efficiency in spite of 
all the disintegrating influences of selfishness. 
It joins men together in well-ordered soci- 
eties, and binds all to God in a true unity of 
the Spirit. 1 

5. It is in the light of such a definition 
of religion that the significance of salvation 
appears. Men have questioned sometimes 
whether there were any place or need for sal- 
vation in a system of thought which repre- 
sented God as immanent in the world and 
in man, and which identified the so-called 
" forces of nature " with His immediate resi- 
dent influences. In point of fact, there is the 
largest possible place and need for salvation. 

1 Ephesians iv. 3; Colossians iii. 14. 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 273 

It is not so much a salvation from a future 
as from a present hell. Indeed, it is not so 
much a salvation from a fate, as to an op- 
portunity. Yet the one implies the other, 
and the old-time preaching of hell was in no 
sense irrational or needless ; though it was 
too often ill-proportioned. There is signi- 
ficance in the fact that when Jesus is repre- 
sented in the Gospels as performing miracles 
of healing, the verb crcj£o> is repeatedly used. 
In the King James Version it is sometimes 
translated " to make whole," as when the 
woman in the crowd says to herself, " If I 
may touch hut his clothes, I shall be whole " 
(Mark v. 28). Again, after a work of healing 
has been accomplished, it is translated " to 
save ; " " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in 
peace " (Luke viii. 50). " To save " is of course 
its literal translation, but the salvation which 
it portrays in these instances is the making 
whole of an incomplete or partially disinte- 
grated body, and the restoration of normal 
function. Christian salvation is strictly anal- 
ogous. It is the restoration of the maimed 
life, and the completion of the partial life in 
such measure that the functions of faith, hope, 
and love shall become normal. In the life of 



274 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the saved man the obduracy of the material 
with which the resident Spirit must needs 
work out His plans of peace and unity ceases. 
The man becomes tractable and docile to the 
Spirit's influence. 

6. In an earlier paragraph the statement 
was made that no article of a creed which has 
seemed so great and vital as to enter deeply 
into Christian experience would ever prove to 
be without significance. Emphasis may pass 
from it ; it may sink into relative oblivion ; but 
it is not likely to be completely superseded. 
The question may properly be asked whether 
this contention can be sustained with reference 
to the Atonement. It is long since the doc- 
trine of vicarious atonement has stood in the 
forefront of Christian teaching. Some men 
deny it. Others neglect it as though it were 
half obsolete. Is there place for it in the 
thought of a man who believes the Dynamic 
of Christianity to be God as a resident Force 
in His world and in the life of man ? I should 
unhesitatingly answer, Yes. Yet here again 
it must be understood that atonement is to 
be regarded as an experience and not as a 
dogma. It is not a single act of Christ, done 
once and forever upon the Cross, and to be 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 275 

exactly defined in forensic terms. It certainly 
cannot be represented by any crass notion of 
so much suffering credited against a debt of 
so much sin. That sort of commercialism may 
well be as abhorrent to the Christian as ever 
the money-changers' tables in the Temple were 
to his Master. 

Still, the fact remains that if we try to esti- 
mate our immediate knowledge and experience 
of God in terms of the divine Spirit resident 
in man, we find atonement to be His most ap- 
parent aim and purpose. In the definition of 
religion, the fact was just emphasized that 
if it meant anything, it meant a principle of 
integration and harmony, — of vital and natu- 
ral union between the various activities and 
powers of a man, between each individual man 
and his neighbor, and between all men and 
God. This is practical and real atonement in 
its most literal sense. Christ's mission was to 
accomplish this. The method was, in the most 
literal and natural sense, vicarious. He lived 
and died for men. He spent Himself in their 
behalf. He shed His blood in sacrifice, but 
this was simply a rational consummation of 
the course of life-giving which had marked 
the whole ministry. It was not an act essen- 



276 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

tially different from a hundred other acts of 
sacrifice and love. When He felt that virtue 
had gone out of Him to the shrinking and 
fearful woman in the crowd, the experience 
was essentially one with the experience on 
Calvary. The latter was a supreme manifes- 
tation of the same sacrificial love which the 
former evidenced in its proper degree. It 
gave to the declaration of divine love the 
greatest emphasis of which human terms are 
capable. It is a belittling of Christ's sacri- 
fice to say that this atoning work was com- 
prised in a single act or experience of the Son 
of Mary upon Calvary. The Sacrifice and the 
Atonement must be coeval with man's partial 
and separate existence upon the earth. None 
can say when it began or when it shall end. 
The experience of the man, Christ Jesus, was 
the great pivotal chapter in it. His assur- 
ance that the work of the ages was to be 
His own work carried on by the Spirit was a 
prophecy that atonement was to be continu- 
ous. Experience has shown that atonement is 
most efficacious when it is vicarious. It is not 
irreverent to claim that wherever a man bears 
hardness for the sake of his fellow, the work 
of vicarious atonement appears in process. It 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 277 

is not enough to say that this is simply a gra- 
cious echo or reflection of Christ's work. It 
is His work in esse, as carried on by the 
resident Spirit in the world. When Mazzini 
said that there was one appeal to men which 
he found never failed to win a response, — 
the appeal " Come and suffer," — he bore 
testimony to the fact that this Spirit does not 
disdain residence in some men who are far 
from thinking of themselves as Christians. 
Wherever He abides as a ruling principle of 
life, something of the work of atonement goes 
forward, and usually by vicarious method. 

7. It is this fact that gives us a basis for 
a definition of the Church. Ubi Spiritus, ibi 
ecclesia. The question might fairly be asked 
whether, since this little book is based upon 
a belief in the presence of the Spirit in all 
nature, and in all men, the Church were not 
already universal. To which it must be an- 
swered, — Yes, the Church is thus universal 
in posse; but the Church appears in esse 
wherever the Spirit's presence is owned and 
admitted to be regnant in the thought and 
conduct of men in such degree that the nat- 
ural fruits of the Spirit appear. Wherever in 
any man's life " love, joy, peace, long-suffer- 



278 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ing, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meek- 
ness, self-control " appear, these fruits of the 
Spirit afford unanswerable proof of His reg- 
nant presence. These are the true insignia of 
church-membership. 

It is so evident as scarcely to need formal 
statement, that where men are so effectually 
under the Spirit's guidance as to give this 
evidence of His possession of their lives, they 
will naturally associate themselves in local 
bodies for work and worship. Their individ- 
ual preferences with respect to forms of wor- 
ship, modes of church-government, or the rel- 
ative emphasis to be placed upon minor points 
of doctrine, will necessitate greater or less 
variety in the constitution and management 
of these local bodies. This variety may some- 
times become bewildering ; it may often ap- 
pear, and sometimes prove to be, selfish, and 
therefore disorganizing. Yet so long as it be 
held subject to the cultivation of the fruits of 
the Spirit, there is no real schism. " To bite 
and devour one another " is to render the 
structure of the local church obdurate to the 
Spirit's influence, and to invite schism ; but 
the presence of Presbyterian, Episcopalian, 
and Quaker organizations in the same com- 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 279 

munity is in itself no more proof of schism 
in the body spiritual, than the presence of 
clergymen, physicians, and merchants living 
side by side is of schism in the body politic. 

It would, be possible thus to proceed through 
the whole lexicon of theological and religious 
terms, testing their received content by the 
touch of human experience as guided by th& 
resident Spirit. We may be sure that all which 
have ever appealed to men's hearts, and exerted 
a controlling influence upon their lives, would 
prove to have significance, however obsolete 
they may seem to be. Such a task is beyond 
the scope of our present adventure; and this 
chapter must close with a brief reference to 
the new position of the Bible and the doc- 
trine of its inspiration. 

8. Here, as so often elsewhere, we need to 
remind ourselves again that the new view is 
likely to prove but an old doctrine awakened 
out of sleep. The notion of the literal infal- 
libility of Scripture is no true Reformation 
teaching. It represents rather the crust which 
formed upon the Reformation experience when 
men undertook to crowd that experience into 
a snug and well-defined system. 

In their protest against the authority of the 



280 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

Church, the later Reformers found it con- 
venient to set up the ipse dixit of the Bible. 
Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli had gone too 
deep into the real Reformation experience 
ever to give consistent assent to this new doc- 
trine ; but to their successors it seemed to be 
the easiest and most direct way of thoroughly 
systematizing the new thought. They forgot, 
if they ever knew, that as soon as thought be- 
comes thoroughly, that is to say, completely 
systematized, it falls into a dogmatic slumber 
in which men count it dead. In propound- 
ing the doctrine of Biblical infallibility, its 
sponsors did the immediately easy thing, for- 
getting that the truth, while it always proves 
ultimately practicable, is by no means always 
immediately easy. It loves to laugh at our 
confident attempts to cram experience into a 
little system, and it is sometimes shockingly 
contemptuous of our small consistencies. For 
instance, the average man upon the street 
will say that the shortest distance between 
two points upon the earth which lie exactly 
east and west from each other is to be mea- 
sured upon the " straight " east-and-west line. 
He treats it as a self-evident proposition, and 
inclines to laugh at any other claim ; but 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 281 

the navigator, knowing that this is never the 
shortest distance except upon the equator, 
sails forth upon his great circle arc with a 
confidence which puts his uninstructed friend 
to shame. The bane of science has always 
been the number of thinkers who have in- 
sisted upon sailing on small circles because 
small circles can be completed, while the 
great circles of experience, the arcs of which 
represent our most direct paths to ultimate 
realities, are never quite closed. 

The Bible is not so much a supernatural 
and infallible code of Christian verities, 1 as 
a witness to man's experience of God. We 
need have no hesitation in claiming for it the 
place of a unique witness, because historically 
it has held a singular and unique place in 
human life. By the same token we are as- 
sured of its " inspiration," and that in unique 
degree. 

The religious experience which the Bible 
sets forth is of the highest order. The story 
of it is of the highest significance, and there- 
fore of the highest authority. But the author- 
ity consists in the aptness of this experience 
to every man's need. The inspiration con- 

1 Sabatier's Religions of Authority, p. 165. 



282 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

sists in the voice which speaks through the 
Bible story to our hearts. When those hearts 
are not too heavy with failure over fruitless 
attempts to reconcile impossible theories of 
Scripture, they own the Spirit's voice in it 
as sheep own the voice of the shepherd. In 
the utterance of this intimate and appeal- 
ing message, the divine Force resident in 
human life uses imperfect means as readily 
and generously as He uses imperfect men in 
advancing the cause of truth and of right to- 
day. He speaks through Bible history, but 
nowhere vouches for its infallibility. He uses 
the voice of Hebrew poetry, and the man who 
cannot discern the note of inspiration in the 
Psalms may well conclude that there are no 
chords in his soul upon which any breath of 
the Spirit can ever take effect. Just as im- 
partially, and with the same divine humility, 
the Spirit avails Himself of the traditions, 
legends, and perhaps the myths 1 of a highly 
endowed people to interpret His message to 
their hearts. 

There need be no hesitation in admitting 

1 I confess to a great skepticism about the presence of the 
mythical. Tradition and legend abound ; but the mythical 
seems antipathetic to the Hebrew genius. 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 283 

this to be quite as true of the New Testament 
as of the Old. The resident Force working 
out His plan of religious development in the 
life of the race disdains no ordinary human 
methods of accomplishment. He loves the 
normal as Jesus Himself, with His refusal 
to grant signs and wonders to a sensation- 
seeking crowd, always seemed to do. The 
supra-normal appears from time to time, as 
it always appears in every epoch-making 
life. A great life is always a channel for the 
introduction of strange experience, which the 
majority of the men of the time treat with 
skepticism. It was to be expected that the 
greatest life would prove to be the channel 
for the most striking and startling revelation. 
The whole question of Miracle must be rele- 
gated to the concluding chapter. Yet it is, 
however, too late in the day to deny miracles ; 
just as it is quite too late to think of them 
as contraventions of the order of the uni- 
verse. The greatest miracle is Christ's life 
and death, and the outflowing of influence 
into our experience from them. Let us admit, 
and gladly, that the history of the first cen- 
tury has come down to us as other histories 
have come; that tradition has played its 



284 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

part, and that legend has here and there 
brought its accretion. Criticism of the sane 
and generous sort ought to be invited, rather 
than shunned. It is hard to see what de- 
structive work it can do, except to the struc^ 
ture of those who build their faith upon a 
foundation of mechanical inspiration, instead 
of upon the presence of God which, in greater 
or less degree, every age has experienced. 
The first century felt it in a unique measure, 
as it seemed to be interpreted into its life in 
the Person of Christ. The New Testament is 
the attempt, and a most highly authoritative 
attempt, to preserve that experience in a form 
which shall make it applicable to the life of 
every generation. Yet every century inter- 
prets and applies the meaning of the New 
Testament story in the light of an experi- 
ence longer and richer by one hundred years 
than that of its predecessor ; but no century 
has succeeded in reading any vital factor out 
of the Gospels and Epistles. 

9. Just now the Gospels of the Infancy with 
the story of the Virgin Birth are bearing the 
brunt of a new inquiry among so-called ortho- 
dox Christians. Let us admit for the moment, 
and solely for the sake of argument, that the 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 285 

tradition incorporated in the early chapters 
of Matthew and Luke proves to be legendary 
in its character. Is it, therefore, to be re- 
garded as outside the pale of significant 
Scripture, and preserved to the canon only 
upon sufferance as a sort of historical curi- 
osity ? And shall we, to be consistent, cut out 
the words " conceived by the Holy Ghost " 
from the Apostles' Creed ? I cannot think 
so ; because centuries of experience have 
proven practically beyond cavil the truth of 
the Creed's declaration. The real central as- 
severation of the Creed is that Jesus Christ 
was in the article of birth as truly as in the 
article of death an incarnation of divine life 
and love. He came upon a unique errand. 
He was to fulfill a unique destiny. The real 
significance of the doctrine to the Church 
and the world, and the ultimate meaning of 
the words of the Creed, is simply an echo of 
the angel's word to Mary, — " The Power 
of the Most High shall overshadow thee." 
The mere physical circumstances of incarna- 
tion are so absolutely irrelevant as to make 
inquiry into them as unseemly in this case as 
in the case of any other great life. If the 
phrase in the Creed were to go, the experi- 



286 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

ence of the Christian world would demand 
the substitution of another. Even admit- 
ting the Gospel of the Infancy to be mere 
legend, it is hard to see what phrase could 
be substituted for "conceived by the Holy 
Ghost/' which would so exactly express the 
conclusion thrust upon a man who believes 
in an orderly universe, the life of which 
develops, and the history of which unfolds, 
under the impulse of a resident personal 
Force. 

Although extended reference to the greatly 
vexed question of the Ultimate Source of 
Authority must be left to the next chapter, 
the trend of this will indicate the direction 
in which the writer looks for its practical 
answer. It is not to a book, or to a church, 
or to a creed. It is not even to history in 
the common acceptance of that word ; that 
is, it is not to a mere precis or brief of 
human experience. It is rather to the voice 
of the creative Power, immanent in the world, 
speaking the language of the soul in terms of 
conscience and reason. Since, however, the 
language of the soul is an imperfect tongue, 
and the individual soul's life is sure to be 
inadequate for the utterance of the whole 



NEW MEANING OF SOME OLD WORDS 287 

truth, and too often obdurate to its transla- 
tion into goodness, other authorities have 
their place and weight. Chief among these 
stand the common conscience of believing 
people, the consensus of opinion among right- 
minded men, the history of human experi- 
ence, and in particular the unique expression 
of it found in Sacred Scripture, culminating 
as it does in the life of Jesus Christ. He ex- 
pressed this truth of God's residence in the 
world as it had never been expressed before. 
He told His disciples that it was the Gospel 
for the future. There are signs that the world 
is at last opening its eyes to the significance 
of His word. 



XII 

THE NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 

It seems a far cry now to the day when so 
mild a heresy as that of " Essays and Re- 
views " could shatter the peace of ecclesias- 
tical dovecots. In point of fact, however, but 
two-score years have passed since the Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council reversed the 
judgment against Rowland Williams and H. 
B. Wilson for their part in that rash enter- 
prise. This was on February 8, 1864. On 
February 14, John Richard Green, the his- 
torian, wrote to his friend Boyd Dawkins that 
there seemed now nothing remaining in the 
formularies of the Church of England to re- 
strain freedom of thought. He fancied that 
there would be an almost universal feeling of 
dismay at the notion of a church attempting 
to teach without authoritative and definite 
standards of doctrine, and then adds, " If I 
do not share these fears, if I <exult at the 
destiny which God has given to the Church 
which I love, it is because I believe in the 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 289 

Inspiration of the Church, in its guidance by 
the Spirit of God." He goes on to note the 
formal belief in such guidance which Christian 
people generally admit in word ; maintains 
that the voice of this Spirit must be sought 
in the final utterances of the conscience of 
Christendom ; and concludes : " That these 
' voices of the Church ' do not point in a doc- 
trinal direction, but in directions moral, so- 
cial, political, intellectual, is a fact well worth 
noting. Another notable fact is the extreme 
slowness with which c Christian opinion ' forms 
itself, — how many ages it required ere serf- 
dom became an acknowledged wrong, for 
instance. The history of the Church is the 
record of its education by the Spirit of God. 
No wonder, then, that we are in some re- 
spects in a period of suspense now that we 
see in part and prophesy in part ! " * 

It was the utterance of a true seer. That 
phrase " period of suspense " admirably char- 
acterizes the forty years which have inter- 
vened. Those four decades have seen the rise 
and the decline of an agnosticism the prin- 
cipal practical tendency in which was, in 
homely phrase, " to let what we don't know 

1 Letters of J. R. Green, ed. by Leslie Stephen, p. 140. 



290 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

rule what we do know." This agnostic style 
of thought held the germs of dissolution in 
itself, and it had only to state its contention 
fairly and squarely in order to supply its own 
antidote. In its extreme and most consistent 
form this was little less than an invitation to 
men to permit the paralysis of what they 
instinctively feel to be their highest facul- 
ties. James Russell Lowell was no partisan 
of orthodoxy. He could be depended upon 
to speak out frankly in behalf of the inde- 
pendent and natural man, in the best sense 
of those two hard-used adjectives. It will be 
remembered, however, that after reading the 
late Sir Leslie Stephen's " English Thought 
in the Eighteenth Century " he wrote : " I am 
very much in the state of mind of the Bre- 
tons who revolted against the revolutionary 
government, and wrote upon their banners, 
6 Give us back our God.' I suppose I am an 
intuitionalist, and there I mean to stick. I 
accept the challenge of common sense and 
claim to have another faculty, as I should 
insist that a peony was red though twenty 
color-blind men denied it." * 

1 Cf . editorial on " The Outgrown Agnosticism " in the 
Boston Transcript of February 26, 1904. 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 291 

The vogue of agnosticism was due largely 
to the fact that it seemed to recognize the 
suspense of the period to which Green re- 
ferred. Its inadequacy to meet the need of 
the thinking world for more than one or two 
hazy days lay in its failure to trace this sus- 
pense to its true source. The world had grown. 
It was becoming too big to be the creation of 
some men's God. Hence the temptation to 
fancy that unless this world of experience could 
be kept within traditional limits, all faith 
in God must go. The true antidote for the 
fear lay in a perception of the truth that 
every increase of knowledge in any depart- 
ment of human life, when rightly interpreted, 
is really a revelation of God. It is significant 
that Green implied this in saying that the 
voice of the Spirit in the Church had uttered 
His dictum in terms " moral, social, political, 
intellectual," quite as often as in terms of 
abstract doctrine. The fundamental fact is 
that the source and ground of revelation are 
one, although the channels through which 
the revelation flows into the experience of 
men may be so many and so diverse as to 
seem contradictory. 

The fear that has sometimes oppressed 



292 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

good men until it tempted them into courses 
of reaction and obscurantism has been an 
unworthy dread lest a discovery in the realm 
of the " natural " might somehow contradict a 
revelation in the realm of the " supernatural." 
The mocking skepticism of a certain school of 
naturalists, on the other hand, has had its 
source in the claim that research into the 
realm of the " natural " would eventually do 
away entirely with experience in the realm of 
the " supernatural." Great store of breath 
and ink has been expended in attempts to 
reconcile these two camps. The hostility has 
persisted despite all temporary truces; and 
rightly enough, because of the narrow and 
partial outlook of both groups of combatants. 
The research of neither has often gone deep 
enough to discover the common truth which 
supplies them both with all the really effec- 
tive weapons in their arsenals. The expected 
reconciliation at which so many fatuous at- 
tempts have been made will never come as 
the result of a compromise. It is to be no 
armed peace. Its good fruits will not grow 
in a field which Religion grudgingly makes 
over to Science, and on which Science in 
return pays contemptuous respect to Reli- 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 293 

gion. All jealous comparison of the relative 
worth of the experience with which each deals 
is beside the mark. The principle which gov- 
erns the value of both to human life lies too 
deep for discovery by such methods as that. 

This principle appears only with the recog- 
nition of the fact that there is no room in the 
universe for a fundamental contradiction of 
experience ; that all experience makes for the 
discovery of truth ; and that all truth is sacred 
in proportion to its applicability to conduct. 
These things seem so much like platitudes 
that the pen almost balks at them. Yet in a 
sense all life consists in bringing thought and 
conduct into vital relation to axioms, which 
in the process must needs be stated and re- 
stated, line upon line, precept upon precept. 
The thing that gave a real significance to 
the late Professor Drummond's popular books 
was his recognition of this fact of the con- 
tinuity of experience, and the fundamental 
identity of the ground of experience. The 
natural and the spiritual were not two distinct 
spheres animated by two distinct principles 
of life. One resident Force wrought in both 
in accordance with one self -consistent purpose. 
Nor was there one principle of revelation in 



294 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

the sphere of the spiritual and another in the 
sphere of the natural. The source of life 
and knowledge in both realms is identical. 

It remains to inquire a little more inti- 
mately into some of these new harmonies of 
revelation which should appear as the old 
dualism or pluralism gives place to faith in a 
Spirit of all truth, resident in the world and 
in men. In the first place, what will be the 
fate of " revelation " ? Timid souls have all 
too often given themselves up to the fear that 
"revelation" would be despoiled of religious 
authority unless its method were more or less 
involved in mystery. The mass of Christian 
believers in the nineteenth century has been 
almost as clamant for a sign as was the Gali- 
lean multitude in the first. Jesus was slow to 
gratify curiosity then ; the Spirit as really dis- 
trusts it now. The signs of the times and the 
living parables of nature were the avenues 
through which Christ loved to guide the truth 
into the experience of those about Him. The 
whole system of genuinely Christian thought 
is built upon the principle that everything 
known is revealed, whether it come by way of 
a sudden voice from heaven or through toil- 
some human research. To the Christian who 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 295 

believes in God resident and executive in 
His world, every revelation is a discovery and 
every discovery is a revelation. The Ten 
Commandments, even upon the most literal 
interpretation of the splendid Exodus tradi- 
tion, were a discovery of Moses ; and the 
formula of the attraction of gravitation, with 
its far-reaching influence upon our knowledge 
of the material universe, was no less a revela- 
tion to Newton. The anthropomorphic finger 
of God upon the tables of stone has obscured 
the natural means of Moses' revelation as 
effectually as the traditional apple upon the 
mathematician's head has hidden the spiritual 
significance of Newton's discovery. 

It may well be true that some revelations 
are more immediate than others in this sense, 
that they involve a far less obvious display of 
ordinary means, precisely as some discoveries 
seem more intuitive than others because the 
chain of revealing events is hidden. In the 
intercourse of person with person, heart some- 
times speaks to heart with such directness 
that the idea of discovery is obscured in the 
evident fact of revelation, while in the patient 
investigation of what we so blindly call ma- 
terial phenomena, the reverse is as often true. 



296 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

But fundamentally there is an identity of 
experience here, and to permit revelation to 
rule discovery off its premises, or vice versa, is 
to deny the presence of the Spirit in the world. 

It follows that any real antinomy between 
natural and revealed religion is false, and that 
even a sharply defined distinction must prove 
unworthy and misleading. Its only justifi- 
cation lies in the fact that there is a shade 
of difference between the revelation which 
smites the human heart with the compelling 
impact of a " thus saith the Lord," and the 
revelation which is seen to be implicit in the 
structure of the universe. The former is often 
sudden, and the latter gradual, in asserting 
itself. The former may also relate itself more 
immediately and explicitly to conduct than 
the latter; it requires less translation in order 
that its message may be expressed in terms of 
goodness. Yet even here the distinction is 
temporary and incidental rather than perma- 
nent and essential. Fundamentally, natural 
and revealed religion are but different names 
for the same appeal, directed in the former 
case, it may be, a little more directly to the 
intellect, and in the latter to the heart. 

So by degrees, as Christianity matures and 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 297 

bears fruit in a genuine faith in God as a Spirit, 
we shall see the old and long emphasized dis- 
tinction between natural and supernatural 
fade away. It can be maintained only upon 
the hypothesis that God is not really at home 
in His world, and that He becomes execu- 
tive in it merely by fits and starts. The sole 
excuse for the distinction is that it serves a 
certain purpose in emphasizing the power of 
initiative conferred upon all persons. The pos- 
session of a will puts a person into the sphere 
of the supernatural. He ceases to be the 
plaything or tool of circumstance and becomes 
the master, possibly the originator, of circum- 
stance. Wherever a will, divine or human, sets 
itself to the fulfillment of a definite purpose, 
and uses circumstance as its constructive ma- 
terial, there the " supernatural " may be said 
to come into play. Yet it is doubtful if the 
word does not cost more than it is worth. It 
is anti-Christian in the sense that Christianity 
has no real place for it or need of it. Christ's 
thought of God the Spirit as the vital divine 
Force in the world leading men into all truth 
implies that all God's processes are natural, 
inasmuch as Nature itself is but an inclusive 
expression for the sum of them. 



298 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

This Is not to deny what is commonly meant 
by the supernatural. It certainly is not to 
deny the miraculous. The opening twentieth 
century has had too large experience of the 
miraculous to be skeptical about it ; but the 
rule of faith is that, as experience goes on, 
the realm of the natural grows. The thing that 
once appeared to be so out of the course of 
events as to confuse our endeavors to account 
for it is bound eventually to find its place as 
an element in the circle of our larger know- 
ledge. The so-called supernatural is but the 
supra-normal. It is not beyond nature, but 
simply beyond our experience of nature. It is 
not an interference with the orderly process 
of the divine activity, but rather the glimpse 
of new and unsuspected divine resources. The 
province of faith in a God who is a resident 
spiritual Force in the universe is to enlarge 
the realm of the normal until it shall suffice to- 
morrow to include the supra-normal of to-day. 

Take, for instance, the case of the long- 
distance telephone, through which a conver- 
sation is maintained over a space of two hun- 
dred miles. The quick alternation of question 
and answer is an absolutely supernatural oc- 
currence to the man who sees in it the travel 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 299 

to and fro of sound-waves. It is not merely 
supra-normal ; it is abnormal, making an ap- 
parent breach in the so-called law of nature 
which indicates the rate at which sound-waves 
travel through air or copper wire. Upon the 
plane of the man who is conversant with the 
normal conduct of sound-waves but ignorant 
of the rules governing electrical disturbance, 
this apparently instantaneous transit of sound 
is as flat a contradiction of the continuity of 
nature as any loitering of sun and moon over 
Aijalon. If he be a man of little scientific 
faith, he denies the fact on the ground of his 
regard for a well-established rule of acoustics. 
If his faith be adequate, he calmly investi- 
gates, and a new scientific revelation is vouch- 
safed to him. It was rashly announced the 
other day that the discovery of radium was 
likely to make a serious breach in the law of 
the conservation of energy ; but the announce- 
ment savored strongly of scientific superstition. 
The law of the conservation of energy is but 
an expression in physical terms of the omnipo- 
tence and omnipresence of God. It is a recog- 
nition of the essential soundness of the uni- 
verse, or of the oneness of the universe, to 
put it tautologically. It registers the faith of 



300 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

science in a Power which animates creation, 
not fitfully and spasmodically, but with con- 
stant and unfailing adequacy. Experience 
may demand modification in the form of the 
law ; but the central truth which it strives to 
express is an almost instinctive utterance of 
both religion and physical science. It is the 
cry of heart and flesh alike for the living — 
that is, the adequate and constant — God. 

It will of course be objected that this is 
pantheism. To which the instant answer must 
be made that it is as far as possible from being 
a pantheism which makes personality a late, 
perhaps a last, product of a world process. 
Personality is primary and fundamental. The 
Soul of the Universe must be thought of as 
a Person, if He is to be rationally regarded 
at all. To say that this confession of faith 
in a resident executive Spirit is to make a 
god of the material universe is like saying 
that because I rejoice to hear my friend's 
footfall and to recognize his face, therefore 
the face and the feet with their fellow mem- 
bers comprise my friend. They are but signs 
of his presence and agents of his will. There 
is no discernible element of reason, feeling, or 
will in the physical components of them, and 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 301 

yet they are the daily tools for expressing and 
giving efficacy to reason, feeling, and will. 

We pass on to note the exaggerated anti- 
nomy between the physical and the spiritual. 
As an antinomy it is false. The physical is 
but an expression of the spiritual. The poets, 
big and little, have always felt it, and thereby 
established their claim to the divine afflatus. 
A century has passed since Coleridge wrote : 

" And what if all animated nature 
Be but organic harps diversely framed, 
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps 
Plastic and vast one intellectual breeze, 
At once the soul of each, and God of all." 1 

It seems but day before yesterday since T. E. 
Brown, the gifted Manx schoolmaster, put the 
same truth in far less conventional form : — 

MY GARDEN 

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! 

Rose plot, 

Fringed pool, 

Ferae d grot — 

The veriest school 

Of peace ; and yet the fool 

Contends that God is not — 

Not God ! in gardens when the eve is cool ? 

Nay, but I have a sign; 

'T is very sure God walks in mine. 

1 Quoted by Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 404. 



302 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

The curse of dualism in both religion and 
physical science has been that it has always 
incited its votaries to take sides as between 
the physical and the spiritual. Asceticism has 
resulted in one case, materialism in the other. 
Both are essentially counsels of fear. One 
undertakes to deny the use of the physical, 
the other the existence of anything except 
the physical. The so-called Christian Scien- 
tist, with his theoretical denial of the exist- 
ence of matter, or pain, or sin, is the modern 
protagonist of the former school. He does 
not go to the length of preaching asceticism, 
but he should do so in order to be consistent. 
Nor does the materialist commonly carry out 
his philosophy to its gross and hopeless con- 
clusion. Yet the old gibe that in his expla- 
nation of experience he is like a nurse who, 
having attempted to bathe a child, throws 
away the child with the water, has its appli- 
cation. Precisely as the ascetic disdains God's 
physical means of self -revelation, so the mate- 
rialist disdains the revealing Spirit Himself. 
Neither has a sufficiently ample conception of 
the universe, and the range of possible human 
experience, to make his thinking adequate to 
the larger demands of life. Neither can quite 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 303 

slake the human thirst for a consistent me- 
dium in which to live. To each we can use the 
words of the woman of Samaria, " Sir, thou 
hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 
deep." ' 

What we call the physical is but a sign to 
our senses of an underlying reality. The 
would-be materialist is himself one of our best 
witnesses to the truth of this affirmation. In 
a rather bumptious and sophomoric little book 
entitled " New Conceptions in Science," Mr. 
Carl Snyder has a chapter upon "How the 
Brain Thinks." It is distinctly materialistic 
in the ordinary sense of that term ; but none 
the less interesting and suggestive. The most 
suggestive thing in it, however, is the conclu- 
sion at which the author arrives. After point- 
ing out that thought or consciousness may 
" be defined in physical terms as the stimula- 
tion of a relatively wide area of the brain," 
he goes on to show that this stimulation can 
be effected only by means of so-called " asso- 
ciation fibres." Without these "association 
fibres " there can be no consciousness. When 
they are present, the currents or waves which 

1 Cf. A. H. Crauford, Enigmas of the Spiritual Life, p. 72. 
A singularly suggestive volume. 



304 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

pass along them are, as in the case of the 
twitching which can be induced in the legs 
of a dead frog, electric in their nature. This, 
according to Mr. Snyder, is sufficient evidence 
that conscious life is to be defined in terms 
of " association fibres " and a " variation of 
electric potential." He is not, however, willing 
to be counted a " crass materialist," and pat- 
ronizingly notices Huxley's unholy alliance 
with Bishop Berkeley in an endeavor himself 
to escape the epithet. " For this," he con- 
cludes, " there is no need now. There is no 
6 dead ' matter. In some degree all matter 
lives." 1 It is a pregnant conclusion, admirably 
illustrating the way in which men who dis- 
trust everything but the " physical " yet read 
into their conclusions in the realm of the 
"physical" the elements which, when devel- 
oped, account for the " spiritual." As Mar- 
tineau once put it, " With a germ, if you can 
secure it, no doubt a great deal can be done, 
and it is a clever device of the physical ex- 
pounder to pack one, unnoticed, into every 
atom in readiness to yield what he wants be- 
yond mere mechanical phenomena. . . . We 

1 Snyder, New Conceptions in Science, pp. 268-270. 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 305 

know of germs only as the product of perfect 
beings." 1 

It might as well be admitted first as last 
that the physical and spiritual represent but 
different aspects of one inclusive experience. 
Christ seemed so to regard it. The material 
world in which He found Himself was all 
alive, and " every common bush on fire with 
God." The physical is the temporary form 
which the eternal Energy assumes in the 
working out of transcendent purposes. It 
can never comprehend or include, nor, on the 
other hand, can it ever exist without, the spir- 
itual. The world passeth away — the form 
is ever changing — but the Energy which is 
its ground and reason abideth forever. 

Some years have now elapsed since very 
much has been said upon the subject of 
"natural goodness." But there was a day 
when characters of the Sydney Carton type 
in fiction raised grave questions in the breasts 
of conscientious and faithful people. What 
was to be said about the generosity, some- 
times reaching to the point of self-immola- 
tion, depicted in these lives? How was it to 

1 Hours of Thought, ii. 112. 



306 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

be accounted for in view of their occasional 
apparent divorce from religion, and their fre- 
quent divorce from orthodoxy ? By what 
standard was the efficient goodness of one 
of Bret Harte's Argonauts to be judged? 
What standing in the light of the Gospel 
had Mr. John Hay's conclusion concerning 
Jim Bludso, the rough but heroic engineer, 
who held his burning boat against the river- 
bank until the last passenger escaped? 

" He seen his duty, a dead sure thing, — 
And went for it there and then ; 
And Christ ain't going to be too hard 
On a man that died for men." 

The question, to be sure, was rather an aca- 
demic one in so far as these characters in 
fiction were concerned ; but it had an imme- 
diately practical side. For these figments of 
imaginative brains sometimes materialized 
into solid flesh and walked our streets. The 
problem of their fate as men of God or chil- 
dren of the devil was awfully and patheti- 
cally real to people who, humbly rejoicing in 
their own faith in God as revealed in Jesus 
Christ, yet trembled for their friends, be- 
cause these friends, though good men and 
women, showing the fruits of the Spirit in 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 307 

their lives, seemed to give no sign of the 
technical experience of conversion. Here stood 
the Scripture, " There is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we 
must be saved ; " here, too, were the evident 
fruits of the Spirit. How were they to re- 
solve the contradiction ? We all know the 
old phrase about the " unco venan ted mercies " 
to which such souls were commended; but 
we forget, or perhaps incline to be a little 
contemptuous of, the deep searchings of heart 
and the fervent prayer which their lot called 
forth. 

The contradiction is resolved only when 
we realize that all goodness is of one funda- 
mental sort ; it springs from one source ; it is 
instinct with one life ; and looks toward one 
goal. The Spirit to whom Christ introduced 
the disciples was to lead men into all kinds of 
truth and right living. He was to prove Him- 
self the great Dynamic of Goodness in the 
world, despising no instruments because of 
their imperfections, and being balked by no 
conventions of men. He was to be as ready 
as Jesus Himself to sit at meat with publi- 
cans and sinners. The ultimate question which 
was to decide a man's fate was whether or no 



308 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

he accepted the Spirit of Goodness in such a 
degree as to make it the really efficient force 
in his life. The moment that this came to 
pass he was a saved man. A long and ardu- 
ous journey might well remain before this 
new force in him should gain the upper hand 
over the evil self in such degree as to give 
him the joy of conscious and full discipleship. 
But the journey was begun ; and it was none 
the less in the right direction and sure of its 
goal because it sometimes missed the conven- 
tional halting-places by the way. 

When, for instance, Carry le spoke of his 
"conversion," men have generally taken it 
for granted that he used the word in a sense 
quite different from that in which it is com- 
monly received. Yet the difference is one of 
form rather than of substance. Any man is 
converted when a great effluence of the Spirit 
of all Truth takes such possession of him as to 
become dynamic in his life, coordinating his 
scattered and hitherto aimless activities and 
enduing his personality with coherence and 
force. This is as far as possible from saying 
that he at once becomes a perfect instrument 
in the Spirit's hands. Nothing is more char- 
acteristic of the Genius of Christianity than 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 309 

His catholicity. He uses, with an ingenuity as 
divine as His charity, all sorts and conditions 
of imperfect means. He manages to make 
the most absurdly inadequate provision of 
loaves and fishes serve for a multitude, and 
then deigns to collect even the fragments 
which the multitude He has just fed are 
ready to contemn. 

" I am aware," says Burke somewhere, 
" that the age is not what we all wish, but 
I am sure that the only means to check its 
degeneracy is heartily to concur in whatever 
is best in our time." It is an inspired utter- 
ance, instinct with the divine charity of the 
Spirit. The method of development through 
a resident and immanent Force which ever 
endeavors to make the best out of that which 
has the savor of health and life in it is the 
way of the Kingdom's advance. There are not 
two kinds of goodness. There are not two 
sorts of truth. Wherever goodness appears 
there the Spirit lives, and wherever truth 
is uttered there the Spirit speaks. 

Hence it follows that we have no cause to 
fear the approach of honest criticism to any 
of our sacred writings. Criticism of the gen- 
uine sort is a simple endeavor to get at the 



310 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

thing that is, and to make it unmistakably 
plain. Its method may be blundering and 
fatuous, to be sure, and so far forth there is a 
place and a call for the criticus criticorum ; 
but the one ground that the critic of the 
critics should forever eschew is the claim that 
the Scriptures are sacrosanct and therefore 
exempt from the critical approach. To claim 
an inspiration for them that makes them a 
magic means of communicating divine truth 
is to put a slight upon the work of the Spirit 
to Whom it was Christ's mission to introduce 
men. All inspiration which reveals the truth 
and enables a man to communicate it is of 
one fundamental sort. There is no question 
but that Holy Scripture brings truth into 
such vital relation to the mind, heart, and 
will as to minister to salvation. In a sense 
that is unique the message of Scripture has 
proven itself to be an integrating and co- 
ordinating force in human life. It has 
made for oneness in thought and conduct. 
Wherever its immediate influence has seemed 
for the moment to be divisive and disinte- 
grating, it has been only by way of prepara- 
tion for a unity that should be real instead 
of superficial and formal. In this positive 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 311 

and constructive ability which it has shown 
to reveal truth in terms of goodness lies the 
evidence of its inspiration. The fruits of 
the Spirit grow in the soil which Scripture 
teaching has cleansed, enriched, and planted. 
Hence we argue that Scripture lives with the 
Spirit's life ; the message of Scripture intelli- 
gently and generously construed is the Spirit's 
message, and thus authoritative. On the other 
hand, we forget one of Christ's greatest and 
most significant words when we proceed to 
deny a cognate and legitimately related inspi- 
ration to other and later writings. The divine 
Presence was to be immediate and appreci- 
able in a new sense after Christ's revealing 
sojourn with men. He was to be known as 
the Helper or Comforter — practically a new 
name for deity. Is it to be supposed that 
He would no longer use the written word as 
a means of translating His message to the 
heart? The notion that inspired writing 
ceased with the composition of the Fourth 
Gospel is altogether out of harmony with 
that Gospel's teaching. It is as mechanical 
and irreverent as the notion that the Fourth 
Gospel's own claim to inspiration is immedi- 
ately dependent upon its exact date and 



312 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

authorship. Inspiration is too subtle and per- 
vasive a matter to be confined to one century 
or one group of men. All great writers who 
have reached the hearts and beneficently in- 
fluenced the conduct of men have known in 
some measure the self-same Power at work 
in and through them which wrought by the 
hands of Isaiah and Paul. 

The reader may recall the admirable criti- 
cism of Dickens by Thackeray in which this 
doctrine is implicit. It occurs at the close of 
the lecture upon " Charity and Humor/' and is 
too long for quotation ; but I cull a sentence 
or two. " As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, 
multiplied kindnesses which he has conferred 
upon us all ; upon our children ; upon people 
educated and uneducated; upon the myri- 
ads here and at home, 1 who speak our com- 
mon tongue ; have not you, have not I, all 
of us reason to be thankful to this kind 
friend, who soothed and charmed so many 
hours, brought pleasure and sweet laughter 
to so many homes ; made such multitudes of 
children happy; endowed us with such a 
sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, 
soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments ? There 

1 This lecture was first delivered in America. 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 313 

are creations of Mr. Dickens's which seem to 
me to rank as personal benefits; figures so 
delightful, that one feels happier and better 
for knowing them, as one does for being 
brought into the society of very good men 
and women. The atmosphere in which these 
people live is wholesome to breathe in ; you 
feel that to be allowed to speak to them is a 
personal kindness ; you come away better for 
your contact with them ; your hands seem 
cleaner from having the privilege of shaking 
theirs. ... I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's 
art a thousand and a thousand times, I de- 
light and wonder at his genius ; I recognize 
in it — I speak with awe and reverence — a 
commission from that Divine Beneficence, 
whose blessed task we know it will one day 
be to wipe every tear from every eye. Thank- 
fully I take my share of the feast of love and 
kindness which this gentle, and generous, 
and charitable soul has contributed to the 
happiness of the world. I take and enjoy my 
share, and say a benediction for the meal." 1 
This is not to ascribe to " David Copper- 
field " the spiritual significance of the Epistle 

1 W. M. Thackeray, Works, Biographical Edition, vii. 
724, 725. 



314 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

to the Galatians. But it is to advance the 
claim, and that upon the highest authority, 
that in so far as the modern master of fiction 
proved his possession of a special commission 
to proclaim the worth of peace and good-will 
to men, his inspiration is of the same funda- 
mental nature as that which gave illumination 
and authority to St. Paul. 

Scarce any question has seemed more vital 
to thoughtful men during the last four hun- 
dred years than the inquiry into the Ultimate 
Source of Authority. It has not always been 
clearly and succinctly stated. Yet it underlay 
the Reformation ; and it has been implicit 
in every great theological and ethical con- 
troversy since. The three quarters in which 
this ultimate authority has been sought and 
wherein it has been supposed by some to 
reside have been the Church, the Bible, and 
the Reason. Each has been made to claim 
the right of ipse dixit by disciples who loved 
it not wisely, but too well, to gain any 
exact notion of its scope and office. The 
Romanist has accepted the authority of the 
Church only to be driven to bolster it up 
by the sorry expedient of papal infallibility. 
Too many a Protestant, departing in some 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 315 

measure from the purpose of the first genera- 
tion of reformers, has looked to the Bible for 
the last and authoritative word, forgetting 
that the Bible is a literature of beginnings. 
In so far as he has become a bibliolater he 
has been threatened with confusion by every 
new discovery in the realm of Biblical science. 
No man more than he would have cause to 
dread the reappearance of the lost Book of 
Jasher, or the discovery of a genuine and 
hitherto unknown saying of Christ. 

The rationalist has been quite as narrow 
and inadequate in his treatment of the Reason 
as his fellows in their view of Church and 
Book. Using it, and philosophizing about it, 
as though it were nothing more than a faculty 
of ratiocination, or a device for grinding out 
syllogisms, he has sought in it an authority 
practically as external as Church or Book 
could be. With a fine contempt for the " su- 
perstitions " of his brethren, he has ground 
his logic-chopping machine only to discover 
its product to be so meagre and jejune that 
men would not feed upon it. Under the 
regime of the rationalist, as in Thomson's 
" City of Dreadful Night," Faith is poisoned, 
Hope starves, and Love suffers violence. 



316 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

What shall we say to these things ? Is the 
search for authority vain ? Is life to struggle 
on without direction ? Is the deep longing of 
the human heart for an infallible guide and 
stay to be treated like the demon in the para- 
ble, turned out into desert places and left to 
wander there until perchance it find evil com- 
pany and come back to make its old home 
worse than ever? No, not while Church, 
Bible, and Reason remain. For the truth is 
that man's dependence upon these three au- 
thorities has been wrong only in so far as 
it has been ill-proportioned and exclusive. 
There is authority in the Church, inasmuch as 
the Church comprehends the Christian expe- 
rience of nearly twenty centuries. There is 
authority in the Bible, and very great author- 
ity. For the Bible, more than anything else, 
fixes the Christian tradition ; in the most suc- 
cinct and intelligible form it hands down to 
us from Christ the secret of turning truth 
into goodness ; and it opens a veritable way 
of salvation. Evangelist is still, and bids fair 
always to be, the best guide to the Wicket 
Gate, through which men on the way to the 
Celestial City need to pass. The Bible is a 
chief servant of Christianity ; but " the ser- 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 317 

vant need not be perfect ; it suffices that she 
be faithful." x 

Again, every authoritative word of life to 
a man must be interpreted by his Reason be- 
fore it can be translated into an act. But the 
Reason is more and better than a device for 
the making of syllogisms. Its conclusions in 
the realm of faith and conduct are safe only 
when feeling and will bring their sympathetic 
assistance to the intellect. Let us grant that 
they have no power to set a verdict arbitrarily 
aside. They do have power, however, to order 
a reexamination of the evidence with especial 
reference to its completeness and adequacy. 
The Ultimate Source of Authority is not an 
objective thing. It has never been fixed, codi- 
fied, and finished. Christ's enunciation of the 
Law of Love was but the statement of its 
principle. He seemed to shrink from explicit 
dicta upon specific acts. Some of His most 
gracious and significant words were wrapped 
up in cryptic forms, so that the living kernel 
might seem the better worth having in con- 
trast with the husk which must be reft away. 
Indeed, it might be claimed without extrava- 
gance and irreverence that He thought of His 

1 Sabatier, Religions of Authority, p. 162. 



318 THE DYNAMIC OF CHRISTIANITY 

own human body as such a husk, which must 
needs be removed before His permanent and 
abiding Spirit could have scope. 

In the Spirit of unity and power, which 
coordinates and integrates all being into a 
universe, the ultimate Source of Authority is 
to be sought. Not until this Spirit is found 
out unto perfection can the Source of Author- 
ity be comprehended in its fullness. But just 
because of this same Spirit's immanence, au- 
thority fitted to, and adequate for, the guidance 
of life is always at hand. It is implicit in the 
experience of men. The conscience of Chris- 
tendom, educated by the Bible, by the expe- 
rience of the Church, by the partial light 
issuing from the ethnic faiths and applied 
to specific cases of conduct by the human 
Eeason acting with a full consciousness of its 
limitations, cannot go far wrong. If it be true 
to itself, it will not miss the mark. 

But this thing is to be noted. The author- 
ity exercised by the conscience of Christen- 
dom is never a complete and fixed quantity. 
Nor is it ever based merely upon the author- 
ity of the past. It is future-regarding. It 
considers precedent, but it does not regard 
precedent as its master. It counts upon an 



NEW HARMONIES OF REVELATION 319 

increasing revelation. It welcomes new expe- 
rience and the new duties which it will bring. 
Its animating principle is the Golden Rule. 
Its norm is the law of an endless life. Its 
application to specific conduct is to be rever- 
ently ordered by that chief practical charisma 
of the Spirit known as Common Sense. 



APPENDIX 

SYNOPSIS OF AEGUMENT 

In this brief statement of the Dynamic of Chris- 
tianity I have asked my readers to proceed upon 
the principle that the influence of Christ in the 
world is a phenomenon worth accounting for ; that 
theology, viewed as the study and explanation of 
Christian experience, makes a legitimate demand 
upon the attention of thinking men ; and that a total 
conception of the universe which may minister to 
that coherence of life and thought which we call 
peace is to be ardently desired. (Cf. Sabatier, 
Eeligions of Authority, pp. 377, 378.) 

With a view to the discovery of the underlying 
principle which has given to Christianity its tre- 
mendous vitality and its singular applicability to 
an ever-changing environment, I first developed 
the premiss that the Science of Christian Expe- 
rience must take impartial account of facts, not 
merely with willingness, but with the same avidity 
which marks other sciences. (Chapter I., Intro- 
duction.) It must keep a multitude of its conclu- 
sions open. It must expect and welcome change 
and development. 

This introduction was followed by a chapter de- 
signed to characterize the attitude of last century 



322 APPENDIX 

— especially that portion of it which has elapsed 
since the promulgation of the Doctrine of Devel- 
opment — toward the subject-matter of our dis- 
cussion. At its close some special reasons were 
cited to justify a confident and expectant attitude 
on the part of the theologian of to-day. (Chap- 
ter II., The Zeitgeist.) I then proceeded to note the 
material with which our inquiry would be forced 
to deal. Three chapters were given to a consider- 
ation of the present status of thought among the 
rank and file of intelligent people upon the Science 
of Religious Experience, or Theology (Chapter 
III., The Present State of Theological Thought 
among the People), upon religion as life's guide 
and inspiration (Chapter IV., The Religion of the 
People), and upon the relations of men to one 
another in society (Chapter V., The Social Unrest). 
The result of this inquiry served to emphasize the 
almost paralyzing incoherence of popular thought 
upon these great matters which at the same time 
absolutely refuse to be banished from men's minds. 
They represent some of life's most immediate and 
insistent interests. They are restive under the ipse 
dixit of external authority ; yet the problems which 
they present have a singular affinity for Chris- 
tianity. Wisely or unwisely, men are always feel- 
ing that there is balm in Christianity's Gilead for 
their religious and social wounds if only they could 
get it applied. As Professor Peabody has put it, 
"This is one of the most surprising traits of the 
Gospel. It seems to each age to have been written 



APPENDIX 323 

for the sake of the special problems which at the 
moment appear most pressing." (Jesus Christ and 
the Social Question, p. 74.) 

It seemed worth while, therefore, to look into the 
teachings of Christ for some central principle vital 
enough to be the resident force in a permanent and 
ever-developing influence upon life. The hypothe- 
sis upon which the remainder of the discussion has 
proceeded is that this principle is to be found in 
Christ's doctrine — sometimes neglected almost to 
the point of oblivion, and sometimes maltreated 
into shapes of wild superstition — of the Spirit. 
(Chapter VI., The Thesis.) In the chapters fol- 
lowing, this thesis was tested by the Christian 
tradition as comprised in the Bible (Chapter VII., 
The Witness of Scripture), by the corporate expe- 
rience of the Church (Chapter VIII., The Witness 
of the Christian Church), and by the testimony of 
individuals concerning the moving springs of their 
own religious or irreligious lives (Chapter IX., 
The Witness of Individual Experience). Our in- 
vestigation appeared to go far to validate the claim 
that in this doctrine of the Spirit as the immanent 
or resident Force in the universe, the Ground of 
phenomena, physical and spiritual, the Kevealer of 
truth in every department of experience, we have a 
vital and coordinating principle, which puts the 
phenomena of the religious life and of physical 
science into natural and harmonious relation. 

The concluding chapters were devoted to a con- 
sideration of some changes in popular definition 



324 APPENDIX 

and some new harmonies of revelation which must 
be expected and ought to be welcomed as the re- 
sult of this closer application of the Genius of 
Christianity to our thinking and doing. Chapter 
X. set forth the new freedom which this Dynamic 
of Christianity confers upon faith. This principle 
is one adapted to deliver men from fear and to 
clothe them with peace. It is a doctrine of uni- 
versal religious application. Its truth not only 
makes appeal to the imagination, but is capable of 
apprehension by the reason and of translation into 
terms of conduct (pp. 221-233). More specifi- 
cally : — 

(1) It makes men at home in the present (pp. 
233-237). 

(2) It gives wholesome elasticity to their insti- 
tutions, affording adequate room for growth in 
creeds, worship, sacraments, and polity (pp. 237- 
246). 

(3) It exalts Reason into its true place as a 
chief agent of Eevelation (pp. 246-251). 

(4) It enables us to welcome the results of his- 
torical and philosophical criticism (pp. 251-253). 

(5) It makes clear the real religious status of 
every man who loves the truth and tries to do it 
(pp. 253, 254). 

Chapter XI., entitled The New Meaning of Some 
Old Words, developed the thesis that all words 
are sacred in proportion as they have come to con- 
note genuine experience. In view of the principles 
already established, all of Religion's definitions 



APPENDIX 325 

must be framed and its words used in expectation 
of an increase in content. Then followed the appli- 
cation of this principle to such terms as God (p. 
260), the Trinity (p. 263), Sin (p. 267), Religion 
(p. 270), Salvation (p. 272), Atonement (p. 274), 
the Church (p. 277), the Bible and Inspiration 
(p. 279), and a brief discussion of the permanent 
significance of such a doctrine as that of the Vir- 
gin Birth (p. 284). 

The concluding Chapter XII., on the New Har- 
monies of Revelation, emphasized the fact that the 
source and ground of all knowledge is One, and 
that every increase in knowledge is a revelation ; 
discovery and revelation being but different terms 
for different aspects of the same experience (pp. 
294-296) ; so with " natural " and " revealed " reli- 
gion (p. 296) ; so also with natural and supernat- 
ural (pp. 296, 297), and the place of miracle (pp. 
298-300). There is no room in the universe for 
any fundamental contradiction of experience, and 
everywhere the physical is but an expression of 
the spiritual (pp. 300-305). (Cf. the significance 
of " natural goodness," pp. 305-309.) The Ulti- 
mate Source of Authority is not an objective thing, 
fixed, codified, and finished ; but really existent in 
the Spirit of Unity and Power (pp. 314-319). 

I am as far as possible from claiming that this 
principle is new, or even that its enunciation is 
original ; but however old the truth, its restate- 
ment will never be hackneyed or out of date as 
long as men insist upon its practical neglect. 



326 APPENDIX 

Objection will be made that the endeavor thus 
to coordinate our thinking upon " religion " and 
" science " looks in the direction of pantheism ; 
but it has already been noted that while pantheism 
as commonly understood practically denies person- 
ality, the doctrine of a Resident and Executive 
Spiritual Power makes personality fundamental. 
Some will say that the positions taken here are 
destructive of much that has been counted vital 
and distinctive in Christianity. To which the only 
answer that need be made is that every item of 
genuine Christian experience is held to be signifi- 
cant and therefore sacred ; that no great doctrine 
which has moulded life is valueless or without 
vital meaning, and that such rearrangement of 
ranks as reinforcements necessitate is in reality a 
constructive process, even though the old alignment 
suffer. If our discussion signify anything, it is that 
there is room in the Christian conception of the 
universe and man's place in it for all truth ; that 
the old distinction between sacred and secular 
truth has no foundation ; that revelation and dis- 
covery are but 'different aspects of the self -mani- 
festation of one efficient and self -consistent Power ; 
and that all life lived in the light and use of truth 
is sacramental. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abraham, 87. 

Achilles, congenial to our ex- 
perience, 196. 

Agitator, the, one conscious of 
"the difference," 119; and 
the reformer, 119. 

Agnostic, the, his fight against 
dogma, 125, 126. 

Ahriman, 50. 

Allen, A. V. G., his Continuity 
of Christian Thought quoted, 
32, 33, 39; cited, 301; his 
Christian Institutions cited, 
173 ; quoted, 175. 

Alline, Henry, the case of the 
conversion of, 200, 212. 

Alsace, peasants slain in, 100. 

America, new era of theological 
development in, 11-15 ; dis- 
covery of, 83 ; provides op- 
portunity for the poor man, 
103. 

Amos, the prophet, voiced the 
social problem, 101. 

Amusements, 60. 

Anabaptists as a fruit of the 
Reformation, 85. 

Anarchist, his notion of author- 
ity, 85. 

Anarchy, sporadic, one of the 
prices we pay for epidemic 
freedom, 182. 

Anthropology, 19. 

Anthropomorphic conception of 
the deity, 132. 

Apocrypha, the, has few refer- 
ences to the Spirit, 149. 

Apostles' Creed, clause relating 



to the resurrection of the 
body, 239, 240 ; clause " con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost," 
285. _ 

Apostolic succession, 173. 

Argument from design, its treat- 
ment by evolution, 41, 42. 

Aristocrat, his notion of author- 
ity, 86. 

Aristodemus confuted by Soc- 
rates, 1. 

Arminian liturgy of the Church 
of England, 239. 

Arnold, Matthew, cited on con- 
duct, 72 ; quoted, 235, 253. 

Article IX. of the XXXIX. Ar- 
ticles, 59. 

Aryan religions, elements of, in 
Christianity, 90. 

Asceticism, 169, 302. 

Ashley, Lord. See Shaftesbury, 
Lord. 

Assertion, dogmatism of, 20. 

Astronomy, 19. 

" Atherton," in Hours with the 
Mystics, quoted, 176. 

Atonement, the, 14, 265 ; larger 
meaning of, 274-277. 

Augustine, his derivation of 
word religion, 271. 

Authority, its place in the 
Church, 82, 83 ; its place in 
the Reformation, 83, 84, 101 ; 
change passing upon the no- 
tion of, 85, 86 ; effect of 
French Revolution on govern- 
mental, 85, 101 ; ultimate 
source of, 286, 314-319. 



330 



INDEX 



Autun, besieged by the Ba- 

gauds, 96. 
Averroes, mentioned, 183. 

Bacon, Francis, mentioned, 127. 

Bacracz, Cardinal, and the Ku- 
rucks' uprising, 98. 

Bagauds, uprising of, 96. 

Baptism for service, 209. 

Baptists, 244. 

Baur, F. C, his book sealed to 
many English readers, 11. 

Berkeley, Bishop, 304. 

Bible, the divine and human 
element in, 52, 53 ; infallibil- 
ity of, 53, 279-282 ; traditions 
of, questioned, 88, 284; au- 
thority in the, 316. See Scrip- 
tures. 

Biblical criticism, Bushnell 
and, 14 ; a cause of doubt in 
religion, 87. 

" Big Man " of the Fuegians, 
132, 134. 

Bildad, 27. 

Birrell, Augustine, his essays, 
186; cited, 189. 

Black death, the, 176, 177. 

Bludso, Jim, 306. 

Book, the, made the head of a 
system, 83. 

Bosanquet, Mrs. Bernard, The 
Standard of Life cited, 104, 
111. 

Bossuet, questions Leibnitz on 
the variableness of the Pro- 
testant churches, 33. 

Bos well, James, on the Presby- 
terians, 47 ; his life of John- 
son quoted, 47. 

Brain, secretes thought as the 
liver secretes bile, 29. 

Bridgewater Treatises, 42. 

Brierly, J., quoted, 188. 

Brown, T. E., quoted, 301. 

Browning, Robert, his comment 
on the prologue of Genesis, 
24 ; his The Ring and the Book 



quoted, 24, 71 ; and Goethe, 
compared, 24, 25. 

Bundschuh insurrection, 98. 

Bunyan, John, mystic, 178 ; 
mentioned, 190 ; epic quality 
of his Grace Abounding, 196. 

Burgon, mentioned, 238. 

Burke, Edmund, quoted on the 
age, 309. 

Bushnell, Horace, his place in 
the new era of theological 
development, 13-15 ; his Life 
by T. T. Munger quoted, 14, 
15 ; quoted, 67. 

Butler, Samuel, mentioned, 42. 

Buxton, Fowell, mentioned, 115. 

Byron, Lord, 235. 

Cade, Jack, his insurrection, 

97. 
Calvin, 93, 280. 
Calvinism, 48 ; its influence 

on American theological 

thought, 11, 12 ; rationalism 

of, 246. 
Calvinistic articles of the Church 

of England, 239. 
Carlyle, Thomas, Sartor Resar- 

tus quoted, 4 ; and Kant, 9 ; 

his conversion, 308. 
Carton, Sydney, 305. 
Catholicism, real issue between 

Montanism and, 175, 176. 
Cause, a transcendent, man a 

believer in, 132. 
Cause - and - effect habit of 

thought, 15. 
Causes, man a natural believer 

in resident, 131, 132. 
Chaucer, mentioned, 102. 
Child labor, reformation of, in 

the last century, 111. 
Chinese, superstition of the, 132. 
Christ Jesus, the partial nature 

of His work, 142 ; His life was 

future-regarding, 142, 144 ; 

expediency of His departure, 

144, 145, 225 ; His references 



INDEX 



331 



to the Holy Spirit, 145, 229 ; 
His difficulty in interpreting 
the Word to His followers, 
152 ; development theory 
found in His teachings, 217 ; 
taught the presence of the 
Spirit, 217, 232 ; saving power 
of, 230; His idea of conversion, 
231 ; atonement through, 265 ; 
infancy and virgin birth of, 
284. 

Christian, the modern, is a dual- 
ist in philosophy, 50 ; finds 
antinomy between nature 
and the supernatural, 50-52 ; 
his attitude in regard to the 
Bible, 52 ; his attempt to 
frame a doctrine of God, 53 ff.; 
of the Kingdom of God, 56- 
62 ; difficulties presented to 
him in the church, 56-62. 

Christian Endeavor, Society of, 
44. 

Christian growth, 14. 

Christian Scientist, 302. 

Christianity, is a living organ- 
ism, 21 ; Romanes on, 37, 38 ; 
practical, of the time, 42 ; 
modern organization under, 
43-45 ; its struggle with reli- 
gious observance, 76 ; elements 
of Aryan and Semitic religions 
in, 90 ; and ethnic religions, 
91, 92; Platonism and, 169; 
three degrees in, 180 ; pro- 
mised freedom and peace, 
221 ; interdependence of faith 
and good works in, 226. 

Church, the Christian, full of 
youthful vigor, 42 ; various 
organizations under, in the last 
century, 43-45 ; lack of sys- 
tem in theological thinking 
among members, 50 ; the dis- 
tinctions of sects in, 56-58 ; 
the need of union in, 58 ; and 
the world, 58-62; system- 
building in, 82, 83 ; the place 



given to authority, 82 ; as an 
article of vertu, 123 ; slow to 
apprehend the doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit, 145, 146, 151 ; 
Holy Spirit works through.the, 
160 ; the witness of the, 168- 
192 ; asceticism and enthusi- 
asm in, 169; the prophet's 
place in, 169, 170 ; and reve- 
lation, 172, 174 ; and indi- 
vidual rights, 173 ; is under 
the influence of a resident 
Power, 192 ; its organizations, 
how affected by the larger 
doctrine of the Spirit, 244, 
245, 278. 

Church of England, its liturgy 
and creed, 238 ; and freedom 
of thought, 288. 

Church of Rome, Macaulay on, 
1, 18 ; built on system, 82, 
171. 

Church's Sense of Responsibil- 
ity, article upon, cited, 112 n. 

Cicero, his idea of religion, 270. 

Clairvoyant, the, 131. 

Clifford, W. K., theologian and 
scientist, 17. 

Cobbe, Frances Power, quoted, 
199 n. 

Cobbler's banner, the, 98. 

Colenso, Bishop, his Higher Crit- 
icism of the Bible, 3 ; his book 
disapproved of by Lord 
Shaftesbury, 8. 

Coleridge, S. T., his influence on 
theological thought, 4, 9 ; 
quoted, 301. 

Colossians, Epistle to, cited, 
272. 

Common sense, 319. 

Comte, Auguste, mentioned, 19, 
23, 93. 

Conduct, the office of religion to 
regulate, 73 ; how affected by 
religious doubt, 73 ; its rela- 
tion to faith, 74, 75, 78, 92 ; 
its degeneration into observ- 



332 



INDEX 



ance, 74 ; regulation must 
come from within, 78 ; refer- 
ence to underlying doctrine, 
80. 

Congregationalist and Christian 
World cited, 112 n. 

Congregationalists, 244. 

Conolly, John, banished the 
strait waistcoat, 114. 

Conscience, its influence on the 
social problem, 101. 

Conscience of Christendom, arti- 
cle upon cited, 112 n. 

Consecration of Christian life, 
209. 

Conservation of energy, the law 
of, is an expression in phy- 
sical terms of the omnipre- 
sence of God, 299. 

Constitutions, periodic amend- 
ment of, 168, 169. 

Continuity, its principle becom- 
ing to Theism, 40. 

Continuity of nature, 126. 

Conversion, religious, 60, 308 ; 
scientific attempts to investi- 
gate it, 193, 200, 207; is a nor- 
mal experience, 198; excite- 
ment of, 199 ; reality of, 199 ; 
typical instances of, 200 ff., 
214 ; immanent Power recog- 
nized in, 208, 215 ; character 
of the experience, 212, 213 ; 
accords with doctrine of evolu- 
tion, 214. 

Conviction of sin, 265, 268, 270. 

Copperfield, David, 313. 

Corinthians, 1st Epistle to the, 
cited, 164 n. 

Corn laws in England, 103. 

Cosmic Force, 134 ; evolutionary 
theory based on the existence 
of a, 140. 

Counter - Reformation, 181 ; 
wrought two results, 183. 

Crauford, A. H., his Enigmas 
of the Spiritual Life cited, 
303. 



Creation, Assyrian tradition of, 
91. 

Creed of the Church of England, 
239. 

Creeds, 239-243 ; elasticity of, 
239; those that express ex- 
perience will abide, 244, 274. 

Criminal, the, work done in the 
last century for, 114. 

Crofton, Sir Walter, mentioned, 
116. 

Cure of souls, 197. 

Custom finds worshipers among 
theologians, 34. 

Dale, R. W., case of the friend 
of, 206, 214. 

Darwin, Charles, his Origin of 
Species and Descent of Man 
mentioned, 135. 

Darwin, Erasmus, 17. 

Dawkins, Boyd, letter of J. R. 
Green to, 288. 

Dead hand, the impotence of 
the, 124. 

Death penalty, change of senti- 
ment in regard to, 116. 

Deed, the, its place in the 
thought of the nineteenth 
century, 23, 24 ; emphasized 
by the church, 45. 

Definitions mark stages in a pro- 
cess of development, 259. 

Deism, 41, 53 ; rationalism of, 
246. 

Deluge, Assyrian tradition of, 
91. 

Dependent Classes, Upon the 
Lot of the, article cited, 112 n.; 
work of the nineteenth cen- 
tury for, 114. 

Destiny, fulfillment of, 264, 
265. 

Development, Doctrine of, its 
apostles' attitude toward the 
theologians, 34 ; feature of 
purposefulness in, 139. See 
also Evolution, Doctrine of. 



INDEX 



333 



Devil, theory that the earth be- 
longs to the, 59. 

Dickens, Charles, Thackeray on, 
312. 

Divine Spirit. See Holy Spirit, 
Spirit. 

Dobson, Austin, his Prayer of 
the Swine to Circe quoted, 68, 

Doctrine, relation of conduct to, 
80 ; built on system, 82. 

Dogma, theology bound by, 31 ; 
attacked by the agnostic, 126 ; 
as a servant, 126. 

Dorner, his definition of person- 
ality, 264. 

Dosza, Transylvanian leader, 
98. 

Doubt, religious, its effect upon 
conduct, 73; factitious, 81; 
Biblical criticism a cause of, 
87-90 ; study of comparative 
religion a cause of, 90 ; mis- 
apprehension of personality 
closely related to, 93. 

Dualistic philosophy, 50 ff., 122. 

Dunant, J. H., Red Cross Move- 
ment due to experiences of, 
117. 

Drummond, Henry, 191; source 
of his popularity, 293. 

Dutch, uprising of the, 99 ; the 
number slain, 100. 

Dyke, Henry van, his term 
" cureless melancholy of dis- 
illusion," 68. 

Eagle compared with Christian 
freedom, 222. 

Ecce Homo, disapproval of, by 
Lord Shaftesbury, 8. 

Eckhart, 178, 183. 

Eden, Sir Frederick, his State of 
the Poor cited, 102, 110 ; men- 
tioned, 113. 

Edersheim, his Life and Times 
of Jesus the Messiah cited, 149. 

Edwards, Jonathan, mentioned, 
12. 



Eliphaz, 27. 

Empiric, the, exalted in last two 
generations, 86. 

England, new era of theological 
development in, 9-11; opposi- 
tion to German thought, 10. 

Enthusiasm in the Christian 
Church, 169. 

Ephesians, Epistle to the, cited, 
165, 272. 

Episcopalians, 244. 

Erasmus quoted on the rise of 
the Dutch, 99. 

Erskine, Thomas, influence of, 
in theological thought, 4; 
his Kingdom of Christ men- 
tioned, 4. 

Ethnic religions, importance at- 
tached to, 260. 

Ethnic trinities, 91. 

Evangelical, not bound by tradi- 
tion, 2. 

Evangelical preaching, 78, 79. 

Evangelical Revival, its force 
spent, 9. 

Everett, C. C, his Immortality 
and other Essays cited, 208, 
219. 

Evil, problem of, 267 ; present 
in all ages, 27. 

Evolution, Spencerian definition 
of, cited, 216. 

Evolution, Doctrine of, 14; 
growth of its acceptance 
through its theological signi- 
ficance, 17 ; its first effect on 
theological systems, 28-30, 
135; attitude of Protestant 
theologians toward, 32 ; its 
method an aid to theology, 
40-42; and doctrine of final 
causes, 41, 136 ; substantiates 
theology, 41; gives us a larger 
teleology, 42, 140 ; demands a 
unification of knowledge, 134; 
its method is universal, 135 ; 
its attitude toward the future, 
137 ; holds process of develop- 



334 



INDEX 



ment to be purposeful, 139 ; 
reasonableness of, 139, 140 ; 
based on the existence of a 
cosmic force, 140 ; provides us 
with a principle essentially 
religious, 140 ; and religious 
conversion, 214 ; found in 
Christ's teachings, 217. 

Exodus, Book of, cited, 147. 

Experience, 258, 298; God as 
an, 262, 263 ; the power of the 
Church lay in spiritual, 184, 
185. 

Ezekiel, vision of, 240, 271. 

Fairbairn, A. M., his Christ in 
the Centuries cited, 77 ; his Re- 
ligion in History and Modern 
Life, and Influence of the Intel- 
lectual Movement, cited, 104 ; 
his The Place of Christ in 
Modern Theology cited, 26, 196; 
quoted, 224 ; his use of word 
Socinian, 259. 

Faith, the new freedom of, 221- 
254 ; interdependence of good 
works and, 226 ; a saving, 229. 

Faith, Christian, its relation to 
conduct, 74, 75, 78, 92; not 
content with observance, 74. 

Fall, the, 14. 

Fanaticism, how a fruit of the 
Reformation, 84, 85. 

Father of the Gods, 134. 

Fathers, Pilgrim, ultra-Calvin- 
ism of, 11. 

Faust, his translation of St. 
John's Gospel, 22. 

F^nelon, 178. 

Fiction, theological topics in re- 
cent, 62-67 ; use of, in theo- 
logical discussion, 63. 

Final causes, doctrine of, treat- 
ment of, by evolution, 41. 

First cause, 133. 

Fisher, G. P., address of, cited, 
40 ; his History of the Chris- 
tian Church, 234. 



Fiske, John, 27; a theologian 
as well as scientist, 18, 35 ; 
his Cosmic Philosophy men- 
tioned, 18. 

Flaccus, letter to, 179. 

Flagellants, 177. 

Force is the presence of God, 
229. 

Force, ultimate, 28. 

Formality in religion, 74, 75. 

Fox, George, mysticism of, 178. 

Franconia, peasants slain in, 99. 

Frederic, Harold, his Theron 
Ware cited, 6. 

Freedom, promised by Christian- 
ity, 221 ; as taught by the 
Apostle Paul, 223, 224. 

French constitution, the, as pe- 
riodical literature, 168. 

French Revolution, effect of, on 
governmental authority, 85 ; 
the poor found a voice with 
the, 100, 101. 

Fritz, Joss, 98. 

Froissart, as chronicler of the 
Jacquerie, 97. 

Froude, Hurrell, his work, 190. 

Froude, J. A., 9. 

Future, the place given it by 
evolution, 137, 138. 

Genesis, Book of, 53 ; Brown- 
ing's comment on the prologue 
of, 24. 

German influence on theological 
thought, 3, 4, 9, 11. 

Germany, traits in, that are born 
of the Reformation, 182, 183. 

Gillen. See Spencer and Gil- 
len. 

Gnostic, the, upheld continuity 
of revelation, 174. 

God, as the Ultimate Cause, 134 ; 
Spirit of, 147, 229 ; Holy Spirit 
an expression of His imma- 
nence, 165, 227-229; as an ex- 
perience, 181, 262 ; as a person, 
229, 231, 300; attempt to de- 



INDEX 



335 



fine, 260-264 ; revelation of, 
as Spirit, 266. 

Godet, F., his Gospel of John 
cited, 159. 

Goethe, mentioned, 135 ; his 
Faust quoted, 22, 23, 25 ; his 
forecast of the philosophical 
temper of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, 23, 24, 135 ; and Brown- 
ing compared, 24, 25. 

Good works, interdependence of 
faith and, 226. 

Goodness, all, springs from one 
source, 301. 

Gore, Bishop, 35. 

Gosman. Alexander, address of, 
cited, 40 n. 

Governments, experience strug- 
gle between system and spirit, 
168. 

Graham, Sir James, 255. 

Gravitation, law of, 50 ; is God's 
revelation of His presence to 
a stone, 229. 

Gray, Bishop, his criticism of 
Colenso, 8. 

Green, John Richard, his Short 
History of the English People 
cited, 102 ; letter to Boyd 
Dawkins, 288. 

Greene, G. A., quoted, 68. 

Guyon, Madame, 178. 

Gwatkin cited, 170. 

Hamilton. William, quoted, 36. 
Hardy, Thomas, more preacher 

than novelist, 63, 64 ; his Tess 

of the D' Urbervilles cited, 64 ; 

Jude the Obscure cited, 64 ; his 

treatment of fate and passion, 

64, 65 ; his God, 65. 
Harte, Bret, 306. 
Hastings, James, his Dictionary 

of the Bible cited, 146, 148, 

165, 170. 
Hay, John, his Jim Bludso, 306. 
Headlam, cited, 161, 162. 
Hebrew Scriptures, all energy 



referred to a divine source in, 
148: 

Hegel, 156 ; influence of, in new 
era of theological thought, 10 ; 
anecdote of Comte and, 10; 
reception of his philosophy in 
England and Germany, 10, 11 ; 
and Strauss, 10, 11 ; his philo- 
sophy of the Trinity, 197. 

Hegelianism has lost its damning 
power, 156. 

Henley, W. E., quoted, 69. 

Historic method adopted in the- 
ology, 40. 

History, the Spirit in, 159 n. 

Hodder, Edwin, his Life and 
Work of the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury quoted, 8, 9. 

Holy Ghost, the modern sin 
against the, 250. 

Holy Spirit, Christ's references 
to, 145 ; His work in the world, 
145, 157-159, 166; anticipa- 
tion of, in the Old Testament, 
146-151 ; meaning and use of 
the Hebrew word, 146, 147; 
lack of mention of, in the 
Apocrypha, 149 ; presentation 
of, in the New Testament, 
151 - 165 ; character of His 
influence and guidance, 153- 
159 ; works through men, 160 ; 
always an expression of divine 
immanence, 165, 227-229 ; 
personality of, 231. See Spirit. 

Holy Spirit, doctrine of the, 141, 
145 ; Christian Church slow to 
apprehend, 145, 146, 151 ; sur- 
vival of, among the Alexan- 
drian Jews, 150; Johannine 
treatment of, 155, 156-159, 
161 ; Pauline, 161 ; as the doc- 
trine of God's immanence, 
227 ff. See Spirit, the larger 
doctrine of the. 

Homer, the hidings of his power 
196. 

Homily, weakness of, 79, SO. 



INDEX 



Hosea, Book of, cited, 75. 
Human spirit, the Iliad and the 

Odyssey of the, 196, 198. 
Huxley, T. H., theologian and 

scientist, 17 ; mentioned, 238, 

304. 

Idea of Divinity, 28. 

Iliad, the, of the human spirit, 
196, 198. 

Imprisonment for debt, abolition 
of, 115. 

Incarnation, doctrine of the, 91, 
284-286. 

Independents occupied "with doc- 
trinal controversy, 4. 

" Index Expurgatorius," 183. 

Individual, the life of the, 
guarded by modern society, 
116, 117 ; advance of, during 
the last century, 118; rights 
of, upheld by the Montanist, 
173; in religious conversion, 
207, 208. 

Individual experience, witness 
of, 193-220. 

Infancy, prolongation of, impor- 
tance of, in evolution of man, 
137, 138. 

Inge, his Christian Mysticism 
cited, 27, 169, 181, 184, 262 ; 
quoted, 52. 

Inquisition, the, 183, 184. 

Insane, the, work done in the 
last century for, 114. 

Inspiration, doctrine of, 84, 
279 if. 

Inspiration of the Bible, 279- 
311. m 

Institutionalism, conflict be- 
tween science and, 15. 

Intuition, 179. 

Isaiah-prophecies, 53 ; quoted, 
75 ; authorship, 88. 

Jacob, 146 ; wrestling with the 

angel, 215. 
Jacquerie, outbreak of the, 97. 



James, William, his Varieties of 
Beligious Experience, 194 f.; 
case cited by, 200 ; on prayer, 
207 ; his review of Spencer's 
Autobiography, 216. 

Jefferson, C. E., address cited, 
44 n. 

Jesuits, rise of the, 183. 

Job, Book of, cited, 147. 

Johannine treatment of the doc- 
trine of the Holy Spirit, 155, 
156-159; compared with the 
Pauline, 161. 

John, Gospel of, cited, 155 ; 
quoted, 180. 

Johnson, Samuel, on the Pres- 
byterians, 47. 

Johnson's Universal Encyclo- 
pedia cited, 50. 

Jonah, Book of, 53. 

Jonah, experience of, 88, 89. 

Joss Fritz, 98. 

Jowett, Benjamin, his theology 
disapproved of by Lord 
Shaftesbury, 8. 

Judaism, formalism and real 
religion in, 74-76 ; Sabbath 
of, 76 ; laws of, 76. 

Jude the Obscure, theological as- 
pect of, 64. 

Kant, Immanuel, 9, 17, 103, 135. 
Keats, John, quoted, 253. 
Keble, John, mentioned, 187. 
Kidd, Benjamin, mentioned, 138. 
Kim, Kipling's, 106. 
Knowledge, said to have three 

degrees, 179. 
Kurucks of Hungary, uprising 

of, 98. 

Labor organization, 104: pro- 
gress of, in the last century, 
112. 

Laborer's family in New Eng- 
land, story of, 112. 

Langland, William, his Piers 
Ploughman cited, 102. 



INDEX 



337 



Q 



Last Athenian, theological as- 
pect of, 63. 

Law, 28 ; of the scribes and of 
Christ, 76, 77. 

Laws, natural, supposed to be 
opposed to divine, 50 ff. 

Lecky, W. E. H., quoted, 67, 
234. 

Lectures, courses founded on 
antiquated views, 124. 

Leibnitz, on the eternally vari- 
able church, 33. 

Leon, Louis de, 184. 

Lewes, Mrs., her translation of 
Strauss's " Leben Jesu," 30. 

Life Saving Service, 117. 

Logos, 152. 

Lorraine, Duke of, mentioned, 
100. 

Lowell, J. R., quoted on Ste- 
phen's English Thought in the 
Eighteenth Century, 290. 

Luther, Martin, mentioned, 99, 
100, 184, 280; his interpre- 
tation of the Epistle to the 
Romans, 181. 

Lying Prophets, theological as- 
pect of, 65 ; quoted, 65, 66. 

Macaulay, T. B., his essay on 
Von Ranke's History of the 
Popes, 1, 4 ; quoted, 2 ; on 
theology not a progressive 
science, 1, 2, 6, 15, 18. 

Maconochie, Alexander, men- 
tioned, 116. 

Malachi, Book of, cited, 75. 

Man, superstition of, 18, 133 ; 
the one unsatisfied creature, 
118 ; a natural believer in 
resident causes, 132 ; believes 
in a transcendent Cause, 132. 

Marconi instrument mentioned, 
212. 

Martineau, James, quoted, 237, 
304. 

Materialism, 302. 

Matheson, George, his Spirit- 



ual Development of St. Paul, 
164. 

Maurice, F. D., his influence in 
new era of thought, 4. 

Maurice, the elder, 3. 

Maximian. Emperor, 96. 

Mazzini, G., quoted, 277. 

McGiffert, A. C, his Apostolic 
Age cited, 162. 

Medicine, 19. 

Medium, so-called spirit, 131. 

Method, 28. 

Methodist preaching, mentioned, 
78. 

Mill, James, his misrepresenta- 
tion of religion, 3. 

Miracle, 14, 28, 52, 283, 298. 

Missionary work, growth of, in 
the last century, 44 ; the mis- 
sionary a sign of society's 
solidarity, 1 18. 

Missions, Catholic, speak of a 
Power resident among men, 
191. 

Modern Christian thought. See 
Christian, the modern. 

Molinos, 178. 

Montanist, the, 172, 173; real 
issue between the Catholic 
and, 176. 

Montanus, 175. 

Moody, D. L., mentioned, 191. 

More, Sir Thomas, 1. 

Morley, John, his Life of W. 
E. Gladstone cited, 255. 

Moses, mentioned, 146, 166; 
voiced the social problem to 
Pharaoh, 101. 

Mysticism, Christian, 75 ; the 
office of, 176 ; lack of, in Bri- 
tain, 176, 177 ; grotesqueness 
of, exaggerated, 178 ; sense of 
immediateness in, 181; "ex- 
perience of God " in, 181. 

Nash, H. S., his Genesis of the 
Social Conscience quoted, 
109. 



INDEX 



Natural, the, and the supernat- 
ural, 50-52, 292, 297. 

Natural goodness, 305^ 

Natural selection, growth of 
its acceptance through its 
theological significance, 17 ; 
seemed to demand a selfish 
life, 136 ; to make life a thing 
of the present, 136. 

Nature, 14; seeming antinomy 
between the supernatural and, 
51 ; force manifested in, is 
rational, 127 ; investigator 
in, who is inspired by faith, 
127. 

Negation, dogmatism of, 20. 

New meaning of some old words, 
255-287. 

Newman, Cardinal, 39, 186, 
187 ; quoted, 63, 233; his 
vogue, 189 f. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, spiritual 
significance of his discovery, 
295. 

Nicene theology criticised, 224. 

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 39. 

Nonconformist, the, an anti- 
quarian, 3. 

Non-resident causes, aversion to 
the belief in, 131. 

Novel, the theologian as lay fig- 
ure in the, 6 ; the theological, 
considered, 62-67. 

Numbers, Book of, cited, 147. 

Observance, and conduct, 74, 
76 ; faith not content with, 
74. 

Odysseus congenial to our ex- 
perience, 196. 

Odyssey, the, of the human 
spirit, 196, 198, 206. 

CEdipus quoted, 36. 

Old Testament, anticipation of 
the Holy Spirit in, 146-151. 

Opportunist, exalted in the last 
two generations, 86. 

Ordo ordinatus, 13. 



Ormuzd, 50. 

Oxford Movement, the so-called, 
188-191. 

Paley, William, argument from 
design, 1 ; treatment which 
his argument received from 
evolution, 41 ; his maxim, 
255. 

Pantheism, 53, 300. 

irapd.K\r}TOs, 145. 

Parliamentary Eeform, 103. 

Paul, Apostle, 314 ; quoted, 63 ; 
his treatment of the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit, 161-165 ; 
on prophets, 169 f. ; his doc- 
trine of freedom, 223 ; and 
Apollos, 249. 

Peabody, F. G., his Jesus Christ 
and the Social Question 
quoted, 107. 

Peace, promised by Christianity, 
221 ; given through truth, 222, 
253. 

Peasants, early uprisings of, 96- 
99 ; the numbers slain, 99, 
100. 

Peasants' Revolt of 1524, the 
slain in, 100. 

Pedagogy the toy of an empiri- 
cal psychology, 85. 

Peel, Sir Robert, legislation of, 
111. 

Penal codes, revision of, 117. 

Pentecost, 162. 

Persecution, 183. 

Person, God as a, 229, 231. 

Personality, worth of, set aside 
for mechanical contrivance, 
93 ; of the Holy Spirit, 231. 

Peter, Apostle, cited, 164. 

Pharaoh, mentioned, 101, 146. 

Philo, 150, 157. 

Philosophical systems must con- 
tinue to be partial, 93, 130. 

Philosophies, all pass through 
struggle between system and 
spirit, 168. 



INDEX 



Philpotts, Eden, the theological 
aspect of his novels, 65 ; his 
Lying Prophets quoted, 65, 
66. 

Physical, the, and the spiritual, 
301-305. 

Platonism, parallel between his- 
tory of Christianity and his- 
tory of, 169. 

Plimsoll, Samuel, legislation 
advocated hy, 117. 

Plotinus, mentioned, 27, 169 ; 
cited, 179. 

Poe, E. A., his Pit and Pendu- 
lum mentioned, 19. 

Poetry, recent, theological topics 
in, 67-71 ; expression of un- 
rest in, 68-70, 233 ; longing 
for the future in religious, 234. 

Poor, the, pathos of their lot, 
96 ; early uprisings of, 96-99 ; 
found a voice with the French 
Revolution, 100-103 ; Moses 
and Amos on, 101 ; in the 
time of Chaucer, 102. 

Poor man, the, his political 
rights are won, 104 ; is search- 
ing for economic privileges, 
104; the last century gener- 
ous to, 108-114 ; his chance 
of livelihood considered, 110- 
114. 

" Poor Man's Chance of Liveli- 
hood, Upon the," article cited, 
112 n. 

Pope, the head of a system, 83. 

Porter, F. C, cited, 149. 

Power, its place in the thought 
of the nineteenth century, 23, 
24 ; exists, 45 ; search for some 
other than the influence of 
Jesus Christ, 61 ; as a new 
object of allegiance, 94 ; must 
be factor in the answer to the 
social question, 120 ; evolu- 
tionary theory based on the 
existence of a, 140 ; attributes 
of, 140 ; is personal, 140, 218 ; 



religious revivals speak of a, 
191 ; the Christian Church is 
under the influence of, 192 ; 
recognized in phenomena of 
conversion, 208 f., 215; which 
moves in evolution, is identi- 
cal with that which makes for 
righteousness in man, 218. 

Preaching, ethical, compared 
with spiritual, 78-80 ; revival 
of, in the nineteenth century, 
79, 80 ; weakness of, 79, 80. 

Presbyterians, 244 ; occupied 
with doctrinal controversy, 4. 

Present, Christian man at home 
in the, 233-237 ; agnostic's 
view of, 234, 235. 

Priest, the, his conflict with sci- 
ence, 15, 16. 

Pringle-Pattison, A. S., cited, 
120. 

Private judgment, right of, 84, 
182. 

Professor, who read nothing of a 
decade's standing, 86. 

Prophet, especially imbued with 
the Spirit of God, 147 ; the, in 
early church, 169. 

Protestant Church, variableness 
of, 33. 

Protestant theologians, their at- 
titude toward the doctrine of 
evolution, 32, 33 ; power of 
adaptation of, 33. 

Psalms of David as sung in New 
England village, 57. 

Psychologist, his study of reli- 
gious phenomena, 193-195, 
200. 

Pusey, E.B., Lord Shaftesbury's 
letter to, quoted, 8 ; his oppo- 
sition to German theological 
thought, 11. 

Quacks, political and economic, 
105, 108. 

Quakers, as a fruit of the Re- 
formation, 85. 



340 



INDEX 



Radium, 299. 

Raikes, Robert, his organization 
of the Sunday-school, 43. 

Rational, spiritual as, 52 ; Crea- 
tive Force is, 264 

Rationalism, and Christianity, 
246 ; German, 247 ; the meth- 
ods of, 247-249. 

Reason, human, is the chief 
agent of the divine Spirit in 
man, 246, 249. 

Rebellion, the, mentioned, 205. 

Red Cross movement, 117. 

Reformation, the, and the Re- 
naissance compared, 25, 26 ; 
its attitude toward authority, 
83, 84 ; principles of, but yet 
dimly discerned, 84 ; fanati- 
cism how a fruit of, 85 ; and 
the Counter-Reformation, 181; 
its connection with the doc- 
trine of the Spirit, 182; its 
assertion of freedom, 182. 

Regeneration, 60. 

Reign of Terror, the slain in, 
100. 

Religion, facts of, have a claim 
upon men, 39 ; the, of the 
people, 72-95 ; confusion of 
thought in, 73, 81 ; its office 
the regulation of conduct, 73, 
77; doubt in, 73, 82, 87; 
faith in, 74, 78 ; observance in, 
74, 76 ; formality and mysti- 
cism in, 74, 75 ; made real in 
the Hebrew prophets, 75 ; 
Pharisaic and Christian, 76, 
77 ; significance of the word, 
77, 270 ; as moribund, 122 ; 
system-building in, 82, 83 ; 
Biblical criticism a source of 
doubt in, 87-90 ; study of com- 
parative religion a source of 
doubt in, 90 ; secret of, lies in 
a principle of life, 131 ; prin- 
ciple of, must be rational and 
with an outlook upon the fu- 
ture, 131 ; evolution gives us a 



principle essentially religious, 
140 ; experience of, in conver- 
sion, 198 ; interdependence of 
righteousness and, 226 ; de- 
finition of, 272 ; natural and 
revealed, 296. 

Religion, study of comparative, 
90. 

Religions, all feel struggle 
between system and spirit, 
168. 

Religious conviction, persistence 
of, 89. 

Religious experience, Professor 
James on, 194 ; the abnormal 
in, 195. 

Religious melancholy, 229. 

Religious Significance of Recent 
English Verse, essay on, cited, 
71 n. 

Renaissance, the, and the Re- 
formation compared, 25, 26. 

Resident causes, man a natural 
believer in, 131-133. 

Resurrection of the body, 240- 
242. 

Revelation, 2, 28; case where 
the content of, was fixed, 12 ; 
continuity of, upheld by the 
Montanist, 172, 174 ; of God 
as spirit, 266; the new har- 
monies of, 288-319 ; every dis- 
covery is a, 295. 

Revival, evangelical, of the 
eighteenth century, 185-188. 

Revivals, religious, speak of a 
Power resident among men, 
191. 

Revolution, the, mentioned, 205. 

Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 
had their influence on social 
conditions, 103. 

Robert UJlsmere, theological as- 
pect of, 62. 

Robinson, John, his saying that 
more truth might yet break 
out from the Word of God, 
12, 13. 



INDEX 



341 



Romanes, G. J., his record of 
his attitude toward religion, 
85-39; his Thoughts on Reli- 
gion quoted, 35-39 ; his Can- 
did Examination of Theism 
mentioned, 36 n. 

Roruilly, Sir Samuel, his bills 
abolishing- death penalty for 
certain felonies, 116. 

Ruah, meaning of the word, 146. 

Rydberg, Victor, theological 
aspect of his Last Athenian, 
63. 

Sabatier, his Religions of Au- 
thority cited, 281 ; quoted, 
316 f. 

Sabbath of the Scribes and of 
the Christians, 76. 

Sabellianism, 55. 

St. Augustine, quoted on un- 
rest, 69. 

St. John, Gospel of, Faust's 
translation of, 22. 

St. Juan of the Cross, 184. 

St. Paul's, ruins of, imagined by 
Macaulay, 1, 18. 

St. Teresa, 178, 184. 

Salvation, 272, 273. 

Sanday, Professor, cited, 161, 
162. 

Schelling, his theory of the Iliad 
and the Odyssey, 196. 

Schleiermaeher, 9. 

Science, seeming conflict be- 
tween theology and, 15, 30- 
34, 40, 251-253, 292 ; what it 
owes to theology, 16-18 ; in- 
vestigation in, compared to 
the arc of a parabola, 128 ; 
teaches one universal principle 
of being, 140. 

Scriptures, traditions of, ques- 
tioned, 88 ; inspiration of, 91 ; 
witness of the, 142-167 ; have 
nothing to fear from criti- 
cism, 309, 310 ; message of, 
is the Spirit's message, 311. 



Second Blessing, the, 209. 

Seebohm, F., his The Era of the 
Protestant Revolution cited, 
100. 

Semitic religions, elements of, 
in Christianity, 90. 

Sense as a degree of knowledge, 
179. 

Seth, Professor, quoted, 181 ; 
cited, 262. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, his opinion 
on theological development, 
7, 8 ; Life and Work of, by Ed- 
win Hodder, quoted, 8, 9 ; his 
disapproval of Ecce Homo, Co- 
lenso, and Jowett, 8 ; his letter 
to Pusey quoted, 8 ; opposi- 
tion to German theological 
influence, 11 ; what he accom- 
plished and what he exem- 
plified, 108 f . ; mentioned, 
188. 

Sharpe, Granville, mentioned, 
110. 

Ship, compared to Christian 
freedom, 222. 

Sin, 267; conviction of, 268, 
270. 

Sin against the Holy Ghost, 
250. 

Smith, Goldwin, his writings on 
Old Testament topics men- 
tioned, 6. 

Smith, G. A., his Modern Criti- 
cism and the Preaching of the 
Old Testament quoted, 149. 

Smith, Robertson, his Prophets 
of Israel cited, 146. 

Smith, Sydney, his article on in- 
sanity and Mad-houses in the 
"Edinburgh" cited, 114. 

Snyder, Carl, his New Concep- 
tions in Science quoted, 303 f. 

Social problem, the, arising of, 
101 ; voiced by Moses, 101 ; 
its existence discerned in every 
age, 101 ; in the time of Lang- 
land and Chaucer, 102 ; can- 



342 



INDEX 



not be differentiated from 
social problems, 107, 108 ; the 
work of conscience in, 110. 
See Poor man, the ; Society. 

Social unrest, 96-120, 122 ; per- 
vasiveness of the question of, 
104, 105 ; is indefinable, 105 ; 
lies largely in the " torment of 
the difference," 119. 

Society, is an organism, not a 
machine, 106, 120 ; is the out- 
working- of an immanent force, 
106; solidarity of , 117. 

Socrates confuting- Aristode- 
mus, 1. 

Speech, freedom of, since the 
French Revolution, 101. 

Spencer, Herbert, mentioned, 93; 
his Principles of Biology cited, 
120 ; his Autobiography re- 
viewed, 216 n. 

Spencer and Gillen, their Na- 
tive Tribes of Australia cited, 
132. 

Spirit, working of the, in man, 
211, 225, 238,249, 250; sea- 
sons of the, 236 ; human rea- 
son is a chief agent of, 246, 
249 ; God revealed as, 266. 

Spirit of God, Old Testament 
references to, 147 ; is the dy- 
namic of Christianity in the 
individual life, 219 ; is one 
with Ultimate Force, 219, 
220, 229; personality of, 
231. 

Spirit, the larger doctrine of 
the, 227-229 ; makes man at 
home in the present, 233-237 ; 
gives an elasticity to Christian 
institutions, 237-246 ; makes 
reason a chief agent of the 
Divine Spirit in man, 246- 
251 ; rids us of fear of criti- 
cism, 251-253 ; gives freedom 
of faith through truth, 253. 

Spirit-possession, primitive be- 
lief in, 131. 



Spiritual, as rational, 52 ; exag- 
gerated antinomy between the 
physical and, 301. 

Spiritual experience, the power 
of the church lay in, 184, 
185. 

Stanley, A. P., his reference to 
Abraham as a sheik, 87. 

Starbuck, Professor, his Psycho- 
logy of Religion, 195. 

Stephen, Sir James, his essays, 
186. 

Stephen, Leslie, 290. 

Strauss, David Friedrich, his 
Leben Jesu mentioned, 3 ; 
the Frankenstein of Hegelian- 
ism, 10, 11 ; brought German 
influence in theology under 
suspicion in England, 10, 11. 

Strudwick, James and Anne, the 
story of, 110, 113. 

Submerged tenth, have found 
voice, 101. 

Sunday-school, inception and 
growth of, 43. 

Sunrise, significance of the 
word, 256. 

Supernatural, the, 14, 28 ; the 
natural and the, 51, 292, 297 ; 
is beyond our experience of 
nature, 298. 

Superstition, tendency of men 
to cherish, 18, 133. 

Survival of the fittest, 29. 

Swabia, peasants slain in, 100. 

Swedenborg, Emanuel, antici- 
pated the nebular hypothesis, 
17. 

Swete, Professor, cited, 146; 
quoted, 150. 

Swinburne, A. C, quoted, 67, 68. 

Symbols, Christian, those that 
express experience are likely 
to abide, 244. 

System-building, of Western 
Christendom, 82, 83 ; of the 
Reformation, 83 ; arraign- 
ment of, in the last two gen- 



INDEX 



343 



erations, 86, 87 ; some look 
for new, 124, 129. 

Systems, inadequacy of, against 
time, 124, 129 ; question 
whether their day is not past, 
125 ; of theology compared 
to a tree, 129 ; struggle be- 
tween spirit and, 168. 

Tauler, John, mentioned, 176, 
178 ; contrasted with John 
Wickliffe, 177. 

Teleology, a larger place found 
for, by evolution, 42, 140. 

Telephone, long distance, 298. 

Tennyson, Alfred, his " infant 
crying in the night," cited, 
67 ; quoted on faith, 71 ; 
prophet of idea of evolution 
in theology, 135 ; quoted, 
116. 

Terms persist because they are 
symbols of experience, 258. 

Tertullian and the Church, 173 f . 

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, theolo- 
gical aspect of. 64. 

Thackeray, W. M., on Dickens, 
312. 

Theatre, the, 197. 

Theism, principle of continuity 
becoming to, 40. 

Theological thought, the present 
state of popular, 47-71. 

Theologian, the, as a novelist's 
lay figure, 6; his rights re- 
cognized by the apostles of 
the doctrine of development, 
34. 

Theology, Macaulay on its not 
being a progressive science, 
1, 2, 6, 15, 18 ; based upon 
revelation, 2 ; German influ- 
ence in, 3, 4, 9-11 ; slow dis- 
semination of the results of 
investigation in, 5 ; attitude 
of the " man of letters " to- 
ward, 5, 6 ; new era of theo- 
logical development, 9 ff . ; 
seeming conflict between sci- 



ence and, 15, 30 ff. ; advan- 
tage to science from, 16-18 ; 
as intolerant of development, 
18, 20, 121; as capable of 
development, 19, 21 ; confu- 
sion of, in the nineteenth 
century, 26; importance of 
its place in modern thought, 
26, 27, 34, 39, 49, 62 ; relation 
of new principles to, 27 ; early 
effect of the doctrine of evo- 
lution on, 28-30 ; and dogma, 
31 ; grounds for the confident 
and expectant attitude of, 34- 
45; its adoption of the his- 
toric method., 40 ; method of 
development theory an aid 
to, 40-42 ; substantiation of, 
by evolution, 41, 48 ; fashion 
in, 48 ; lack of system in, 50, 
62 ; in recent fiction and 
poetry, 62-71 ; use of fiction 
in discussion of, 63 ; as mori- 
bund, 121 ; material of, mul- 
tiplied by religious experi- 
ence, 122, 123 ; agnosticism 
and, 125 ; system of, must 
remain partial, 128 ; systems 
of, compared to a tree, 129 ; 
secret of its permanence lies 
in a principle, 130 ; progress 
of, through recognition of the 
Spirit, 232, 233. 

Thesis, the, 124-141. 

Thirty-nine Articles, 59. 

Thompson, Francis, quoted, 
69. 

Thomson James, quoted, 64 ; 
his City of Dreadful Night, 
315. 

OprjffKda, 77. 

Tintoretto, his Judgment Scene 
mentioned, 13. 

Total depravity, 59 ; doctrine 
of, overstates a great truth, 
59. 

Tractarian, not bound by tradi- 
tion, 2. 



344 



INDEX 



Tractarian movement of the 
nineteenth century, 185, 186. 

Tradition, finds worshipers 
among theologians, 34 ; in ill 
repute in last two genera- 
tions, 86. 

Transcendent Cause, a, man a 
believer in, 132, 134. 

Transubstantiation, Sir Thomas 
More's faith in, 1, 2. 

Tree, systems of theology and 
philosophy, compared to a, 
129. 

Trevelyan, Sir George O., on 
Wesley, 188 n. 

Trinitarian, danger for the, 54 ; 
the " mere logicker," 54 ; his 
Sabellianism, 55; difficulties 
of the, 55. 

Trinity, conception bordering 
on tritheism, 14 ; Hegel's 
philosophy of the, 197 ; doe- 
trine of the, expresses experi- 
ence, 263. 

Tritheism, 54. 

Truth, freedom of faith given 
by, 222, 253 ; search for, is the 
leading of the Spirit, 254. 

Tubingen School, works of, are 
sealed books to many English 
readers, 11. 

Tuckney, 52. 

Tulloch, John, his Religious 
Thought in Britain quoted, 3. 

Tyler, Wat, his insurrection, 97. 

Tyndall, John, theologian and 
scientist, 17. 

Ultimate Cause, demand for a 

recognition of, is irresistible, 

134. 
Ultimate Force and Immanent 

Spirit are one, 220. 
Ultimate source of authority, 

286, 314-319; is found in the 

Spirit, 318. 
Unitarian, and Deist, 53 ; and 

Pantheist, 53. 



Unitarianism, rationalism of, 

246. 
Unitarians, 3. 
Unknowable, the, 29. 

Vaughan, R. A., his Hours with 
the Mystics cited, 169, 179. 

Vital energy of the divine na- 
ture, 147 ; in all energy, 

148. 

Wage-earner is seeking for eco- 
nomic privileges, 104. 

War of 1812 mentioned, 205. 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, her Rob- 
ert Elsmere cited, 6 ; theolo- 
gical aspect of her Robert Els- 
mere, 62, 63. 

Watson, W., quoted, 118. 

Webb, Sidney, his History of 
Trades Unionism cited, 104. 

Wendt, H. H., his Teachings of 
Jesus cited, 155. 

Wesley, John, mentioned, 187, 
188 n. 

Wheel of things, idea that soci- 
ety is bound to, 106, 107. 

Whichcote, quoted, 52. 

Whitefield, George, mentioned, 
187. 

Wickliffe, John, mysticism of, 
176; contrasted with John 
Tauler, 177 ; his church in 
Lutterworth, 240. 

Wilberforce, William, men- 
tioned, 188. 

Williams, Rowland, his part in 
the heretical Essays and Re- 
views, 288. 

Wilson, H. B., his part in the 
heretical Essays and Reviews, 
288. 

Wisdom, Book of, quoted, 150. 

Witness of Scripture, the, 142- 
167. 

Word, the, Christ's difficulty in 
interpreting to his followers, 
152. 



INDEX 



345 



Word of God, Robinson's say- 
ing- that more truth might yet 
break out from, 13. 

Words, the new meaning of some 
old, 255-287; significance of, 
255. 

Wordsworth, William, his influ- 
ence in new era of thought, 
41; quoted, 206. 

World, the, and the church, 58- 
62. 

Worth of Human Life, Upon 
the, article cited, 112 n. 



Wiirtemberg, peasants slain in, 
100. 

Young, Arthur, his Journeys in 
France cited, 102. 

Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, 43. 

Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation, 43. 

Zeitgeist, the, 22-46. 
Zophar, mentioned, 27. 
Zwingli, Ulrich, 280. 



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